Study: 9th Grade E-Cig Users More Likely To Smoke

Ninth-graders who used electronic cigarettes were four times as likely to smoke cigarettes, cigars or hookahs as ninth-graders who never tried the battery-powered devices. Those are the findings of a U.S. study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The research is some of the first to address fear among health officials that e-cigarettes could become a gateway to traditional cigarettes. The results come as the largely unregulated $3.5 billion e-cigarette industry faces mounting criticism from health groups and lawmakers concerned about teens using the devices, which heat liquid nicotine into vapor.

ABC’s Scott Goldberg joined us from New York to discuss.