Teen Nicotine Vaping Trends Show Powerful Evidence Of Addiction

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Tweens and teens who vape are becoming hopelessly hooked on nicotine, a new study warns.

Daily nicotine vaping nearly doubled between 2020 and 2024 among U.S. middle and high school students who use e-cigarettes, researchers reported Nov. 3 in JAMA Network Open.

The share of teen vapers who puff every day rose from 15% to nearly 29%, the study found.

Teens who vape daily also found it harder to quit their habit, researchers said.

The percentage of daily vapers who unsuccessfully tried to quit rose from 28% to 53% during the same period, according to the study.

“The rise in daily vaping and growing number of youth trying to quit implies that these youth are experiencing a severe level of nicotine addiction,” lead researcher Dr. Abbey Masonbrink said in a news release. She’s research director of hospital medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

Researchers noted that newer generations of vape devices can deliver higher concentrations and volumes of nicotine, enhancing the chances of addiction.

“The nicotine industry is constantly evolving — changing the size, concentration and size of products — and youth may not be aware of the high quantities of nicotine they’re consuming,” Masonbrink said. “We’re concerned that these products pose a high risk of addiction for youth who continue to vape.”

For the new study, researchers analyzed the past five years of data from Monitoring the Future, an annual in-school survey of 8th-, 10th- and 12th-graders that asks about their substance use.

Overall, the data used in the study reflected responses from more than 115,000 U.S. teenagers.

Results also reflected changes in the average teen who regularly vapes. By 2024, more vapers were female, Black and from a rural area, researchers said.

For example, daily vaping in rural areas rose dramatically from 16% in 2020 to nearly 42% in 2024, the surveys revealed.

There’s one bit of good news, however. The number of teens who’d vaped in the past 30 days declined among both boys and girls between 2020 and 2024, results showed.

“Youth who only vape occasionally may be able to stop on their own, but those who are vaping daily will have a much harder time quitting without treatment and support,” Masonbrink said.

More information

The National Institute on Drug Abuse has more on nicotine addiction.

SOURCE: Keck School of Medicine of USC, news release, Nov. 3, 2025

Source: HealthDay

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