What do kids smoke nowdays?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmW-ScmGRMA

How do you stop teens smoking? The UK thinks a lifetime ban is the only way forward.

7.5% of American middle and high schoolers reported tobacco product use in the last 30 days, per CDC data.

Tom Jones, Chart R

April 24, 2026

The dull and unending debate around whether smoking is “in” or “out” might be about to get a more definitive answer for the youngest people in the UK, after a bill placing a lifetime ban on the sale of cigarettes, vapes, and other tobacco products to anyone born on or after January 1, 2009, passed through Parliament earlier this week.

Stubbing out

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill still needs royal assent from King Charles — a formality, given the last time a ruling monarch refused it was more than 315 years ago — but may go down as “the biggest public health intervention in a generation,” according to a health minister in the House of Lords. The UK bill follows world-first legislation in New Zealand, where lawmakers passed a bill in 2022 that would prohibit the sale of smoking tobacco products to the same cohort from 2027 — though that move was reversed by the very next government.

UK policymakers clearly think the infringement on personal liberties is worth the healthcare improvements and savings.

If (and it’s quite a monumental if, but let’s speak hypothetically) the US were to pass similar legislation, it would have a big impact on the current crop of American middle and high schoolers’ lives moving forward, 7.5% of whom already reported using a tobacco product in the last 30 days when the FDA asked in 2025.

The most recent National Youth Tobacco Survey — which was released without comment, unlike previous years, leaving analysis of the data to industry giants like AltriaMO $66.42 (-1.09%) — showed usage dropping across most tobacco products even compared to the 25-year lows recorded in 2024, though the share of middle and high school students who smoked cigarettes in the last 30 days stayed steady at 1.4%. That proportion rises sharply once they’re legally able to light up, with the latest CDC data showing that roughly 10% of American adults still smoke cigarettes.

While there’s been progress made in efforts to get young Americans to stop using tobacco products, with overall product usage having dropped from rates seen in 2019, when a staggering 28% of high school students reported using e-cigarettes, there remains a ways to go. Indeed, some experts still point to the ways that vapes have been targeted at younger consumers, highlighting newer models designed to look like smartphones or with video games built in, while noting the rising popularity of nicotine pouches among America’s youth.