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Nearly one in three high school students has reported using a tobacco product recently, according to a new federal survey released on Thursday, evidence that concerns over nicotine addiction among teenagers are not limited to e-cigarettes. “The data released today on youth tobacco product use are deeply troubling and indicate that past progress in reducing youth use of these products has been erased,” said Brian King, the deputy director of the Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “These troubling rates of use are being driven by e-cigarettes, which have no redeeming aspects among youth.” (Hoffman and Kaplan, 12/5)

The findings also show that many of the young people who tried e-cigarettes for the first time said they did so because they were curious. Witnessing their family or friends try e-cigarettes, as well as interest in flavors such as fruit, mint, candy or chocolate were other reasons. In addition, tobacco advertising played a huge role. Nearly 9 in 10 middle and high school students reported exposure to tobacco product advertisements or promotions from at least one source. (Weixel, 12/5)

“Our nation’s youth are becoming increasingly exposed to nicotine, a drug that is highly addictive and can harm brain development,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said in a release. Last year’s data — showing a reversal in two decades of declining tobacco use — propelled a sweeping proposal from then-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb to curb sales of sweet and fruit-flavored e-cigarettes in stores and on websites that cannot verify buyers’ age. “In order to close the on-ramp for kids, we are going to have to narrow the off-ramp for adults,” Gottlieb said at the time. (Owermohle, 12/5)

Six Massachusetts patients with probable — but not confirmed — cases of vaping-related lung illnesses reported using regulated products from state-licensed marijuana companies, state health officials revealed Thursday night. The patients represent a small fraction of the 90 probable and confirmed cases of vaping-related lung illnesses flagged so far by the state Department of Public Health, but mark the first time state authorities have explicitly linked the lung illnesses to cannabis vapes purchased at legal stores and dispensaries. (Adams, 12/5)

The cars with Massachusetts license plates pull into gas stations and vape shops here steadily every day, the people inside them ready to stock up on electronic cigarettes they can’t buy at home. Along the border in New Hampshire and Maine, sales of nicotine and cannabis vaping products have boomed since Sept. 24, when Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker banned both amid an outbreak of vaping-related lung injuries. At Stoner & Co., a cannabis dispensary in Biddeford, Maine, vape sales rose 76 percent. At Arcus Vapors in Nashua, sales of e-cigarette liquids and equipment have doubled. (Martin, 12/4)

U.S. health officials on Thursday reported one new case and one more death from a respiratory illness tied to vaping, taking the total death toll to 48. As of Dec. 4, 2019, there were 2,291 cases of hospitalized cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 50 states, the District of Columbia, and two U.S. territories. (12/5)

Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser to President Trump, said Thursday that Trump is trying to strike a balance on regulating e-cigarette flavors that preserves the products for adults but keeps them from children. "He's looking for a way to respect and recognize and accommodate the fact that e-cigarettes have a public health benefit for those legal adult users who are trying to come down from combustibles [cigarettes]," Conway told reporters. (Hellmann, 12/5)