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You're listening to LifeKit from NPR.

Hey everybody, it's Mariel.

Today we're going to talk about tobacco products, vaping, and teenagers.

The University of Michigan has been doing this ongoing study of Americans and what drugs they use for decades.

And the researchers, they ask adolescents in 8th, 10th, and 12th grades,

what drugs do you use and how often? So when it comes to tobacco products, there's good news and

bad news. The good kids these days are smoking cigarettes a lot less. In fact, cigarette use is at

or near the lowest ever recorded since the start of the

survey in 1975. The bad news, instead, the kids are vaping.

Overall, the highest rates are among those that are 17 to 18 years of age, where the prevalence

is 23% report having a vap in the past year. So it's one

out of five. It pick around 2019. And then it has slowly go down, but it's still extremely high

among teenagers. One in five high school seniors.

That's astoundingly high.

And it's worth pointing out here,

getting addicted to and quitting cigarettes is not the same as getting addicted to

and quitting nicotine vapes.

We'll get into why in a moment,

but parents should know it's a whole new world out there

...