A few months ago, the FDA and the CDC released the results of the 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS). The results came with a pretty infographic reminding America that teen vaping remains an epidemic and insinuating that flavored vapes are the cause. The most important pieces of news, however, were completely buried.

• Teen cigarette smoking is on the verge of complete extinction, and the reason why that has happened is because vaping exists.
• In addition, the overall rate of teen nicotine use is at an all-time low.
• If these trends continue, it is entirely reasonable to expect that today’s teens will live to see a future in which the use of combustible tobacco products in the United States is virtually nonexistent.

Teen Vaping and Smoking Timeline: 2000-2024

(Want to use this visualization?)

This visualization shows the cigarette and vape use among middle school and high school students from 2000-2024 as reported by the NYTS. There’s a clear and obvious drop in the rate of teen cigarette use after the introduction of vapes. The drastic reduction in teen smoking wouldn’t have occurred – or wouldn’t have occurred so quickly – if vaping didn’t exist.

• In 2000, nearly 35 percent of high schoolers and 15 percent of middle schoolers smoked cigarettes.
• Today, just 1.4 percent of all teens are cigarette smokers.
• Total teen nicotine use shows a clear pattern of rapid decline.
• Teen vaping is also at its lowest level in more than a decade.

Here’s the same data displayed as a bar graph.

Cigarette smoking and vaping rates among high school and middle school students as reported in the National Youth Tobacco Survey. (Want to use this image?)

Sources: CDC.gov (2000-2009), CDC.gov (2010-2021), FDA.gov (2022), FDA,gov (2023), FDA.gov (2024)

Teen Vaping Doesn’t Lead to Future Smoking

For many years, anti-vape advocates have taken an extremely prohibitionist stance – particularly with regard to flavors – on the grounds that teen vaping is likely to lead to future cigarette smoking. That notion seems highly implausible. There’s nothing cool about cigarettes. They taste horrible and smell even worse. Why would anyone who vapes take up smoking?

Much of the data used to support the theory of vaping as a gateway to smoking is extremely flawed. For example:

• A 2015 study published in JAMA Pediatrics used a sample size of just 16 teen vapers.
• A 2021 study published in Addictive Behaviors was funded by Truth Initiative, a group that supports a ban on all vape flavors.

A new study published in Addiction in 2025 finally stated what everyone should have known all along. Although people who vape seem more likely to smoke at some point in the future than those who do not vape, there is no evidence that one leads to the other. It’s possible that some people who are predisposed to risky experimentation are likely to engage in multiple risky behaviors.

Prohibition Isn’t the Answer for Teen Vaping

At the time of writing, the FDA has authorized just 34 vaping products while denying applications for nearly 26 million others, all of which are now technically illegal. The FDA has attempted to enforce this prohibition through multiple means, including warning letters, border seizures and the seeking of civil money penalties.

The vaping products that the FDA has authorized come from just three brands. All of those brands are owned by Big Tobacco companies: Logic (Japan Tobacco International), NJOY (Altria) and Vuse (R.J. Reynolds).

The attempt to ban all flavored vapes and cede what’s left of the market to Big Tobacco, though, isn’t the reason for the decline in teen vaping because the prohibition has had no effect whatsoever on the wide availability of flavored vapes.

The real reasons why teen vaping is on the decline are:

• It petered out on its own as fads typically do.
• Teens are now much better educated about the risks and addictiveness of all forms of nicotine use.
• Compliance checks for online and brick-and-mortar retailers are more rigorous than ever, particularly since the PACT Act was expanded to include vaping products in 2020. Retail enforcement is an area in which the FDA really seems to be making a difference.

A Pragmatic View on Teen Vaping

The past few years have shown that it’s possible to curb teen vaping without preventing adults from accessing products that have helped them quit smoking.

Most people would prefer to see all forms of nicotine use eliminated; even most nicotine users wish they had never started. Eliminating all nicotine use begins with eliminating teen nicotine use. The FDA’s prohibitionist stance, however, isn’t the answer and has had no benefit.

Strict retail enforcement, on the other hand, is making a real difference and should continue.

Continued education and outreach are also crucial. Some teens will always be more likely to engage in risky behaviors, and intervention may convince some of them that trying nicotine isn’t worth a possible lifetime of addiction.

Most adult smokers were once teen smokers, and it’s clear from the data that teen smoking is now on the verge of elimination. If this trend continues, it’s highly plausible that today’s teens will one day witness a future in which almost no one in the United States still smokes cigarettes.

It’s also very likely that the roughly 8 percent of high schoolers who currently vape can look forward to much better health outcomes than the nearly 35 percent of high schoolers who smoked 25 years ago.

Prohibition, on the other hand, could potentially set tobacco harm reduction back by decades.