A September 4, 2019, statement from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Office announced that on that day, she “took aggressive action to protect Michigan kids from the harmful effects of vaping. These actions include making Michigan the first state in the nation to ban flavored nicotine vaping products.”

Her actions, the release states, were based on her Chief Medical Executive, Dr. Joneigh Khaldun’s finding that youth vaping constitutes a public health emergency. While Khaldun’s finding nor how he arrived at it, were not included in the release, Whitmer ordered the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to issue emergency rules to ban the sale of flavored nicotine vaping products in retail stores and online, and ban misleading marketing of vaping products, including the use of terms like “clean,” “safe,” and “healthy” that perpetuate beliefs that these products are harmless.

“Our kids deserve leaders who are going to fight to protect them,” Whitmer declared in the release. “These bold steps will finally put an end to these irresponsible and deceptive practices and protect Michiganders’ public health.”

Just the opposite may be the case.

Studies based on other states and municipalities that had enacted similar policies have shown that they not only do not protect kids, they expose them to greater potential risk and harm.

A study from the Yale School of Public Health, published by JAMA Pediatrics, on May 24, 2021, had analyzed the effects of a similar ban enacted in San Fransisco, CA, in 2018. The study found that after the ban’s implementation, high school students’ odds of smoking conventional cigarettes doubled in San Francisco’s school district relative to trends in districts without the ban, even when adjusting for individual demographics and other tobacco policies.

The report, A Difference-in-Differences Analysis of Youth Smoking and a Ban on Sales of Flavored Tobacco Products in San Francisco, California, was authored by Abigail S. Friedman, PhD, assistant professor of health policy at YSPH, was, in 2021, the first to assess how flavor restrictions across most of the United States influence sales of both vapes and cigarettes.

A previous Yale study, published in 2016, had found that among the most common reasons given by youth who use e-cigarettes low cost and a desire to quit smoking.

A study published in November 2022 by the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, In Practice (Vol.10, Issue 11) found that while e-cigarette use has surged greatly among high school students and young adults over the last decade, fortunately it has declined significantly since its peak in 2019.

“During the same time period, smoking rates have constantly fallen to new low record levels,” the study found. “These trends argue against EC (e-cigarette) use as a gateway to smoking. Most EC usage is infrequent and unlikely to increase a person’s risk of negative health consequences.”

As more and more research is finding, banning flavored e-cigarettes will not necessarily drive adolescents to stop consuming nicotine; on the contrary, such policies have been shown to push adolescents to revert to combustible tobacco. A June 6, 2023, study published by the National Library of Medicine, titled psychological stressors and current e-cigarette use in the youth risk behavior survey, showed that the weighted prevalence of current e-cigarette use was higher among individuals who experienced stressors than those who did not. For example, bullying (43.9% vs. 29.0%).

Similar prevalence patterns were seen among other stressors. Individuals who experienced stressors had significantly higher adjusted odds of current e-cigarette use than those who did not.

The study, the report states, demonstrates a significant association between psychosocial stressors and adolescent e-cigarette use, highlighting the potential importance of interventions, such as targeted school-based programs that address stressors and promote stress management, as possible means of reducing adolescent e-cigarette use.