LONDON, March 31 (Reuters) - One in five teenagers haveexperimented with e-cigarettes, a large study of British schoolstudents showed on Tuesday, fuelling debate about the widespreadavailability of the electronic devices.
Many experts view the metal tubes that heat nicotine-lacedliquid into an inhalable vapour as a lower-risk alternative tosmoking. But questions remain about long-term safety and theiruse among impressionable adolescents.
In a survey of more than 16,000 people aged 14-17 years innorthwest England in 2013, 19.2 percent said they had tried orpurchased e-cigarettes, according to a paper published in thejournal BMC Public Health.
E-cigarette use, or "vaping", was highest among smokers,reaching 75.8 percent in those with a habit of at least five aday, although 15.8 percent of teenage vapers had never smokedconventional cigarettes.
Karen Hughes of the Centre for Public Health at LiverpoolJohn Moores University and other authors of the study said theresearch suggested experimentation, rather than a desire to quitsmoking, was the main driver of teen use.
"There is an urgent need for controls on the promotion andsale of e-cigarettes to children," they concluded.
Wilson Compton of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abusewrote in an accompanying commentary that e-cigarettes, at leastfor some groups, were adding a new recreational drug experienceto an existing repertoire of risky behaviours.
Other experts, however, cautioned against jumping toconclusions, particularly since the study did not follow up tosee whether children continued to use e-cigarettes afterexperimenting with initial puffs.
"Other surveys have so far found that progressing from evertrying an e-cigarette to regular use amongst non-smokingchildren is very rare or entirely absent, suggesting that, todate, e-cigarettes are not responsible for creating a newgeneration of nicotine addicts," said Linda Bauld, professor ofhealth policy at the University of Stirling.
More than 2 million adults use e-cigarettes in Britain,about one third of whom are ex-smokers and two-thirds currentsmokers, according to the charity Action on Smoking and Health.
Nearly all big tobacco companies - including Philip MorrisInternational, British American Tobacco, JapanTobacco International and Imperial Tobacco Group - now sell e-cigarettes to diversify away from themarket for traditional cigarettes, which is shrinking as morepeople quit or cut back. (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Susan Fenton)
