Young people who have tried an e-cigarette may be more likely to go on to smoke cigarettes, a study led by Scots researchers has suggested.
The study found a link between e-cigarette use in “never smokers” – those who have never tried smoking – and their subsequent first experimentation with cigarettes in the following year.
Dr Catherine Best, research fellow at Stirling University, said: “Our findings are broadly similar to those from US studies but this is the first study to report from the UK.
“Uniquely, we also found that e-cigarette use had a greater impact on the odds of cigarette experimentation in young never smokers who had a firm intention not to smoke whose friends didn’t smoke.
“Traditionally, this is the group of young people least likely to take up smoking.”
The research is the result of collaboration between Stirling, St Andrews and Edinburgh universities and ScotCen.
It focused on pupils at four unnamed Scottish secondary schools and saw young people aged between 11 and 18 surveyed in early 2015 and then again a year later.
The findings showed that young “never smokers” were more likely to experiment with cigarettes if they had tried an e-cigarette.
Sally Haw, professor of public and population health at Stirling, added: “The greater impact of e-cigarette use on young people thought to be at lower risk of starting smoking is of particular concern.
“Further research is required to discover how experimentation with e-cigarettes might influence attitudes to smoking in young people traditionally at lower risk of becoming smokers and, importantly, how many of this group who do experiment with cigarettes go on to smoke regularly.”
