Electronic cigarettes are battery-powered devices that look like an ordinary tobacco cigarette. They release flavours as people inhale from them, and do not contain tobacco but can contain nicotine. Although it is currently not possible to legally import and sell electronic cigarettes containing nicotine in New Zealand, they are readily available on the internet.
Participants in the 2012 YIS were asked whether they had ever tried electronic cigarettes, and whether in the past month they had used any form of tobacco products other than cigarettes.
Methodology
Participants in the 2012 YIS were asked whether they had ever tried electronic cigarettes, and whether in the past month they had used any form of tobacco products other than cigarettes. Current smokers were also asked a series of questions about smoking cessation. Responses were examined by smoking status (those who had never smoked, compared with current smokers [smoke at least monthly] and ex [no longer smoke] or experimental [smoke less often than monthly] smokers), susceptibility to smoking (non-susceptible never smokers [who said they would ‘definitely not’ accept a cigarette offered by their best friend or smoke a cigarette during the next 12 months], compared with susceptible never smokers), ethnicity, gender, school decile status, parental smoking status, and close friends’ smoking status. When looking at the differences by ethnicity, gender, school decile, parental and close friends’ smoking, we have controlled for individual smoking status. This means we take into account whether or not a respondent smokes to ensure that any group differences found are genuine and not due to the respondent’s own smoking status.
Further analyses were undertaken to examine changes over time in other tobacco product use as this question was also asked in 2006, 2008 and 2010.
Only those differences between groups and across time which were statistically significant (p<.05) are reported.
Key Results
- A small minority (7%) of young people had tried electronic cigarettes. Current smokers, those who had at least one parent who smoked, and those who had close friends who smoked were more likely to have tried electronic cigarettes.
- In the past month, 4% of young people had used tobacco products other than cigarettes, such as chewing tobacco, snuff, dip, cigars, cigarillos, little cigars and pipes. This rate is similar to 2010 but lower than in 2008 and 2006. Current smokers, males, students at low decile schools, and those who had close friends who smoked were more likely to have used such products.