Connecticut

Most teens get e-cigarettes from family, friends: report

The legal age to buy tobacco products was raised to 21 in 2019.

NBC Universal, Inc.

A new report indicates decades of anti-tobacco message appears to be getting through. Nationwide, the number of young people using e-cigarettes dropped by half a million over the last year, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey.

In Connecticut, 11.5 percent of high school students reported vaping in the last 30 days, according to a survey by the Connecticut Department of Public Health, up from 10.6 percent in 2021. Youth e-cigarette use in our state spiked in 2019 at 27 percent.

The state report also examines how teens are getting e-cigarettes.

More than 43 percent of high schoolers surveyed said they get vape products from family or friends, while 15.5 percent reported buying them at a vape or tobacco shop, and 10.8 percent said they get them at a store or gas station. Thirty-percent of students said they get e-cigarettes some other way.

Among the Connecticut high schoolers who use electronic vapor products, almost 70 percent said they’d used them for cannabis during the past 30 days.

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