Youth Smoking Gains Have Stalled in the Vaping Era, Study Finds

Tracking nearly 600,000 Year 10 students over 21 years, researchers found the decline in smoking slowed after vaping emerged.

School students make their way through the Sydney central business district in Australia on March 26, 2025. Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Proponents of vaping often argue it helps people quit tobacco, but a new study has found that while smoking rates among 14 to 15-year-olds have declined substantially in recent decades, the rise of e-cigarettes may have slowed that decline.

The study, published in The Lancet Regional Health—Western Pacific, found no evidence that vaping reduces harm for adolescents. Instead, it suggests vaping has “substantially added to harms,” particularly for Māori youth.

“We sometimes hear that e-cigarettes might be a harm-reduction device for Māori and Pacific youth ... our results show the opposite,” senior author Associate Professor Andrew Waa said.

How Smoking Trends Shifted

Smoking rates—whether ever smoked, regular smoking, or daily smoking—fell across all groups over the 21 years. But the rate of decline slowed from around 2010, coinciding with the emergence of vaping. The trend was most pronounced for Māori students.

Researchers compared expected declines based on earlier years with actual results.

Waa said that for every 1,000 Māori students, around 20 more are smoking than would have been expected if pre-vaping trends had continued.

“It does suggest that there’s some interaction going on, like vaping might be a pathway to smoking,” he said.

The findings challenge claims that vaping supports youth smoking cessation. New Zealand recently tightened rules around e-cigarette sales, including banning disposables, but enforcement remains weak.

Waa argued that nicotine addiction among adolescents is returning to mid-2000s levels.

“Most people who vape today have never smoked, so all we are doing is leading them into using new products,” he said.

“Vapes are different from cigarettes, but nicotine is still just as addictive, if not more addictive, in these new vaping products.”

He warned that vaping is not a choice anymore once addiction takes hold.

“We’ve made big inroads in reducing smoking rates, but at the same time, we’ve allowed these [vaping] products to become available,” he said.

“We’ve got to change this idea that vaping products are a recreational lifestyle product. They are not; once you are addicted, there’s no choice to it.”

The study also notes that e-cigarettes are not risk-free, citing evidence that some health risks are comparable to cigarettes and that dual use of cigarettes and vapes can be more harmful than smoking alone.

The authors say easy access to vaping products is “embedding new forms of nicotine dependence” and undermining tobacco-control progress for Māori and Pacific communities.

How the Study Was Conducted

The study was conducted by the universities of Otago and Auckland in New Zealand, and the University of Sydney and the Daffodil Centre in Australia.

Researchers analysed data from the Action for Smokefree Year 10 Snapshot Survey, an annual study of a cross-section of year 10 students in New Zealand.

It is one of the largest ongoing surveys tracking adolescent smoking behaviours in the world, and analysed almost 600,000 students aged 14 to 15 between 2003 and 2024.