Electronic cigarettes are used by both smoking and nonsmoking teens, and are associated with drinking and other risky behaviors, a new study finds.
“We found that e-cigarette access is strongly related to alcohol use in teenagers,” said study author Karen Hughes. She is a professor of behavioral epidemiology at Liverpool John Moores University in England.
The researchers surveyed more than 16,000 students, aged 14 to 17, in England and found that 20 percent of them had used e-cigarettes.
Of those who had tried e-cigarettes, 16 percent had never smoked, 23 percent had tried smoking but didn’t like it, nearly 36 percent were regular smokers, nearly 12 percent only smoked when drinking, and nearly 14 percent were ex-smokers.
Students who drank alcohol were much more likely to use e-cigarettes than nondrinkers, and those who regularly binge drank were four times more likely to use e-cigarettes than those who didn’t drink, according to the study.
Among those who drank, e-cigarette use was associated with binge drinking and violence after drinking, regardless of whether they were smokers before. These findings suggest that teens that use e-cigarettes are at risk for other types of substance use and risk-taking, according to the researchers.