Teens increasingly are turning to nicotine-loaded gum, lozenges and gummies for a quick rush, a groundbreaking study warns.
Tobacco-free oral nicotine products were the second-most commonly used nicotine or tobacco items among more than 3,500 Southern California ninth- and tenth-graders surveyed last fall, researchers reported Aug. 8 in the journal Pediatrics.
About 3.4% of respondents said they’d tried the flavored nicotine products. E-cigarettes were the most popular, with 9.6% reporting that they’d vaped.
All other products, including tobacco cigarettes, had been used by fewer than 1% of teens polled.
This is the first study to try to assess how common these new nicotine products have become among teenagers, said lead researcher Alyssa Harlow, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine….