Teens who start vaping are more likely to end up smoking, UCSF study finds

Youths who vape are more likely to light up. That’s the conclusion reached by UCSF researchers, who found that using any form of tobacco — including electronic cigarettes, chewing tobacco, water pipes and snuff — makes a teenager more likely to get hooked on conventional cigarettes. “Teens who experimented with tobacco in any form were at greater risk of future smoking,” said senior author Benjamin Chaffee, a UCSF dentistry professor and one of those who conducted the study of 10,384 youths ages 12 to 17 who were nonsmokers at the outset of the research. The authors said their study was the first to investigate whether using all forms of non-cigarette tobacco leads to smoking cigarettes.