Ricky Resendez first tried e-cigarettes in eighth grade. By the time he got to high school, he was vaping daily.
“It was just kind of normal,” said Ricky, a 17-year-old recent graduate in Superior, Wisconsin. “Kids were vaping in class, in the bathrooms, wherever.”
Nationally, nearly 6% of middle and high school students — amounting to 1.63 million kids — reported using electronic cigarettes in 2024, federal figures show. Although that’s down from previous years, e-cigarettes remain the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, and nearly 9 out of 10 of kids choose flavored products.
Some doctors are concerned that youth vaping rates may rise again. The Food and Drug Administration recently announced its first authorization of fruit-flavored vapes intended for adults interested in quitting or cutting back on more harmful traditional cigarettes. The policy shift came after months of appeals to President Donald Trump from the vaping industry. An FDA memo released this week said these fruit-flavored e-cigarettes are not significantly better at helping smokers quit than tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes.
“I understand the goal of giving adult smokers a less harmful off-ramp, but fruit and sweet flavors are precisely what draw young people in,” said Dr. Scott Hadland at Mass General Brigham for Children and Harvard Medical School. “I worry this could erode the hard-won progress that brought teen vaping to its lowest level in roughly a decade.”
Experts say there are ways parents can counteract the allure of e-cigarettes, teach kids about the dangers of vaping and help them quit.
Dr. Devika Rao sees lots of kids with respiratory problems caused by vaping, including coughing, worsening asthma, bronchitis and more severe types of lung disease.
Studies show teens who vape report higher rates of wheezing, shortness of breath and a reduced ability to tolerate exercise. Gaby Cuadra of Miami, who vaped for nine years starting at age 15, remembers how it hurt her high school track and field performance.
“As the years kept going on and I would keep vaping, the distances that I used to be able to run, I, like, couldn’t do them anymore,” said Cuandra, 25. “I would run out of breath.”
While an e-cigarette’s aerosol doesn’t contain most of the 7,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, most vapes “emit numerous potentially toxic substances,” according to a comprehensive 2018 consensus report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Researchers said the long-term health effects of e-cigarettes are not yet clear.
One of the biggest dangers of vaping is nicotine addiction, which can disrupt the developing brain and affect attention, learning and mood.
“The addiction factor cannot be overstated enough,” said Rao at Children’s Health in Dallas. “Adolescent brains are primed for addiction.”
Start by asking questions, experts advise. You can raise the issue by, for example, pointing out a new vape shop.
“Start open-ended conversations,” Rao said.
Ask what your child knows about vaping and its harms, whether they’ve seen e-cigarettes and if their friends are using them.
