Gateway Hypothesis for Electronic Cigarettes All But Destroyed: Data Show Youth Smoking at All-Time Low 

Organizations that oppose electronic cigarettes, such as the CDC and FDA, and anti-smoking advocates who oppose these products, like Dr. Stanton Glantz, have been arguing that electronic cigarettes are a gateway to youth smoking.

The CDC has gone so far as to claim that its own survey demonstrates that youth are starting with electronic cigarettes and then moving on to smoke real tobacco cigarettes. The CDC has warned the public that e-cigarettes lead to a lifetime addiction to smoking among our nation’s children. 

Fortunately, there is a simple way to evaluate this hypothesis, at least on a preliminary basis, prior to waiting for the results of longitudinal studies.

Enough youth are experimenting with electronic cigarettes, and the increase in youth e-cigarette use has been dramatic and sustained enough, that if the gateway hypothesis were correct, we would be starting to see an increase in smoking prevalence among youth due to the many new smoking initiates that were converted from e-cigarette experimentation to smoking. 

Originally written By Dr. Michael Siegel