by Dr. John Spoede

To smoke e-cigs or not? That is the 21st century question.
In our ever changing world, it is hard to keep up with current trends. Specifically, e-cigs were introduced to the USA market around 2006. Since that time, there have been numerous findings by the CDC on the use of e-cigs among various populations.

Even more telling were the findings from the 2014 Monitoring the Future (MTF) study.

In the 2014 MTF annual study, the use of e-cigs surpassed the use of regular cigarettes. This finding, supports the need for future research on e-cigs. Another (troubling) statistic reported in the 2014 MTF was that 10th grade students use  e-cigs twice as often as regular cigarettes.

For those in the K-12 education system, these findings support the need to develop education programs and interventions. Specifically, e-cigs should be addressed through programs such as “Red Ribbon Week” and “safe and drug-free schools.” For those in the fields of counseling and psychology, there is a need to update our understanding (through CEU’s) of e-cigs. There is also a need for the diagnostic community (those using the DSM-V) to determine how to address e-cigs, which provide nicotine to the user, when determining how to diagnosis and treat clients who actively use e-cigs.  Overall, this is an area of research that has more questions than answers.

To smoke e-cigs or not, that is the 21st century question.