High School Smoking Almost Gone, Vaping Way Down Too

 

Recently the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released data from the 2024 and 2025 National Youth Tobacco Surveys (NYTS).  A few specialty media articles reported some general findings (here, here and here), but otherwise the release was a non-event.

I downloaded the NYTS data and conducted an analysis of high school vaping and smoking, seen in the chart at left.  This explains the lack of media coverage: the teen vaping crisis is over.

The chart clearly shows that exclusive smoking among high schoolers was almost extinct in 2025, at 0.5%.  In fact, it’s getting so rare that it’s hard to attach labels.  Dual smoking-vaping (1.2%) and exclusive vaping (4.7%) were also much lower in 2025 than just five years earlier (3.6% and 16% respectively).

Where is the celebration?  We are close to achieving a smoke-free generation of youth and young adults, which in a few decades will transition to a smoking-disease-free generation of older adults. 

For years I complained about CDC manipulation of the NYTS numbers as it withheld the data and spun the narratives (examples here, here, here, here and here).  I am grateful that the FDA released the NYTS data without spin or fanfare, a big departure from previous releases when the CDC Office of Smoking and Health was the source.