Youth tobacco use fell for six years, and then stopped falling

**Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the
United States, and nearly all of it begins during youth and young adulthood.**

Over six years the trend was good:

The single year, which is a different story

Between 2016 and 2017:

Among high school students — the older group, and the larger number — the only
things that fell were hookah and pipe tobacco, two of the least used
products. Everything that matters at scale held still.

A six-year decline and a flat final year are both true, and quoting only the
first describes a trend that had already stopped.

What they were using

In 2017, e-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product among
both groups:

The product that now leads is the one that did not exist in the earlier
surveys. Which reframes what the 2011–2017 decline was: combustible use fell,
and a new category grew to take the top position — so "any tobacco product"
falling by 4.6 points over six years is the net of two opposite movements.

**Sustained implementation of population-based strategies, in coordination with
FDA regulation, is critical** — and after a flat year, "sustained" is the
operative word.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, MMWR.