抽電子煙的青少年更可能在後期生活中抽香菸

Teens who start vaping are nearly three times more likely to go on to smoke cigarettes than their peers who don't use any type of tobacco product, a new study finds. The results are alarming for both medical experts - who would rather kids not smoke - and for the e-cigarette industry, which is increasingly marketing its products as smoking-cessation tools for adults.

一項新研究發現：抽電子煙的青少年未來抽香菸的可能性幾乎是不抽任何菸草產品的青少年的三倍。對於不建議青少年吸菸的醫學專家和電子煙行業（該行業正將其產品標榜爲成年人的戒菸工具）而言，這一結果令人震驚。

Today's study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, couldn't say whether vaping caused the kids to go on to smoking. But the study authors did find some pretty strong associations between vaping and later cigarette smoking, particularly for kids who would normally be considered "low risk" for substance use: the ones that aren't big on thrill-seeking, drinking, or misusing prescription drugs. The findings are especially timely in light of the Food and Drug Administration's recent announcement that 3.6 million high school and middle school students used e-cigarettes in 2018.

該研究發表在《美國醫學協會雜誌》開放網站上，且並未說明抽電子煙是否是導致青少年後期繼續抽菸的直接原因。但研究作者的確發現抽電子煙與後期抽香菸之間存在強烈關聯，對於那些通常被認爲"低風險"藥物使用的青少年而言更是如此：這些青少年並不熱衷於尋求刺激、飲酒或濫用處方類藥物。美國食品藥品監管局於近日宣佈：2018年共計360萬高中生和初中生抽電子煙，在這一背景下，這些研究發現尤爲及時。

The paper comes on the heels of a major clinical study that showed e-cigarettes helped a small proportion of adult smokers quit cigarettes. The back-to-back publications show the tightrope on which regulators and the e-cigarette industry are walking: on one hand, e-cigarettes may wind up being a useful tool for helping adults stop smoking. On the other hand, there's a growing body of evidence that they act as what FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb has called an "on ramp" to the more dangerous, combustible kind of cigarette.

一項重大臨牀研究緊隨該研究之後，表明：電子煙幫助一小部分成年人成功戒菸。一篇接一篇的論文研究表明監管機構和電子煙產業正在走鋼絲：一方面，電子煙可能會成爲輔助成年人戒菸的有效工具。另一方面，越來越多的證據表明：電子煙的作用與美國食品藥品監管局專員斯科特·戈特利布（Scott Gottlieb）所述一致--通往更危險的可燃香菸的"匝道"。

"These two papers highlight the conundrum public health policymakers are faced with," says Gideon St. Helen, a tobacco researcher at the University of California, San Francisco who was not involved in the research, in an email to The Verge.

"這兩項研究強調了公共衛生政策制定者所面臨的難題，"加州大學舊金山分校的菸草研究員吉迪恩·聖海倫（Gideon St. Helen）在寫給The Verge雜誌的電子郵件中寫道，他並未參與這項研究。

There are a few limitations, including that the study looks at a window of time before Juul really took off, says Michael Ong, a professor of medicine and public health at UCLA who didn't participate in the study. That means the results aren't a perfect window into the e-cigarette market of today.

加州大學洛杉磯分校的醫學和公共衛生學教授邁克爾·翁（Michael Ong）說道，這些研究存在一些侷限性，比如研究是在Juul電子煙爆紅之前開展的，邁克爾教授也沒有參與這項研究。這意味着研究結果並不是反映當今電子煙市場的完美窗口。