In 2024, approximately 1 in 5 middle and high school students who have never smoked reported openness to smoking, the highest level on record. Despite historically low youth cigarette smoking rates, openness now exceeds levels seen when youth smoking was far more common. (Photo: New York State Department of Health)
ALBANY, N.Y. (WRGB) —Youth openness to smoking in New York has reached its highest level on record, according to a 2026 report.
The report included data from middle and high schoolers in the Empire State from 2000 to 2024, revealing that approximately one out of every five students who have never smoked said they would be “open” to the idea.
“It’s concerning for several reasons. Number one, openness to smoking indicates whether there’s going to be future use, and so it’s been correlated,” Capital District Tobacco-Free Communities Director Jeanie Orr said. “Ninety percent of smokers started by the age of 18, and so that’s concerning if young people are now open to smoking.”
Orr also noted that the smoking rate for young people has declined over the years – roughly 2.4% for high schoolers. The May 2026 report further notes that cigarette use among youth remains at a historic low since 2000.
“We’ve gotten there through a lot of prevention efforts, like media campaigns, education in schools, and also smoke-free workplaces, parks, housing,” Orr said. “All of those measures have helped to reduce it, and this is renormalizing smoking again.”
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CBS6 spoke with three local students who are part of <a href="https://tobaccofreenys.org/our-focus/reality-check/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>Reality Check. The youth-led group is meant to empower young people to become community leaders, exposing the marketing tactics of the tobacco industry. Each of the students said that they had personally encountered vaping in their schools.
“I did walk in on some kids vaping in the bathroom once, and there’s often times where you can just smell cigarette smoke or vape smoke in the hallways even,” rising junior Caydence Yeong said.
For rising senior Amra Mohammed, it happened when she was in 7th grade.
“It was like right after gym class. I walked into the bathroom in the locker room, and I saw my friends vaping, and they’re like, ‘Oh, do you want a hit?’ and I was like, ‘No,’ because first of all, I don’t want to get addicted to it,” she said. “I know the effects that it has. I’ve been through health classes.”
Rising junior Ashita Misra told CBS6 that she had had a similar experience.
“Back when I was in 8th grade, a girl that I knew started vaping,” she said. “She used to be very fun, and suddenly, when she started vaping, you could tell that she was a little bit tired. She was always weak and suddenly, her grades started dropping.”
Seeing these effects made Misra want to join Reality Check.
“I’m someone who really prioritizes academics, and [I was] seeing so many people ruin their life because of vaping,” she said. “Education about these vapes isn’t really prevalent, and I believe that joining this group is going to allow me to spread awareness about tobacco and just overall help the youth.”
In 2019, then-Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker and then-Education Department Commissioner MaryEllen Elia sent a letter to New York State schools to raise awareness about the dangers of e-cigarette usage. The state requires comprehensive health education across elementary, middle, and high schools, which must incorporate tobacco prevention. Although a single, standalone mandate on vaping education is not codified at the state level, such the commissioners at the time strongly encouraged the integration of this information into the curriculum.
“We are sending you this letter to alert you to a serious issue of the increasingly widespread use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) among New York State (NYS) youth and to provide you with information and resources to formulate your school/school district response to shield students from this dangerous practice. We need your help to quell this growing health risk,” the letter said. “Claims that e-cigarette aerosol is harmless water vapor are untrue. Although the FDA recognizes propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin as safe to ingest, they are not approved for inhalation and can cause irritation and other health problems when aerosolized. E-cigarette aerosol contains ultrafine toxic particles that interfere with the growth and work of the lungs and increase the risk of heart disease, lung cancer, and asthma attacks. E-liquid ingredients are often unlisted on the bottle or package, and those that do list ingredients may be inaccurate or incomplete. Many youth believe e-liquid is nicotine free, but studies find that is often not the case.”
Capital District Tobacco-Free Communities and Reality Check have worked to be partners in these educational efforts.
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“In 2020, New York State passed a law banning all flavored e-cigarettes, except they had some loopholes. One was that if any received FDA authorization, then those products could be sold. Unfortunately, recently the FDA authorized a few flavored e-cigarettes. So, they are now legal to be sold in New York,” Orr said. “The rest are not, but they’re still out on the market, partly because there are also other loopholes in that law that are allowing them to remain on the market. They’re not supposed to be sold in retail stores, but they’re available for distributors. So, they get into the hands of retailers, and then it gets into the hands of young people and others who use e-cigarettes.”
Work is underway at the legislative level to address these loopholes. But advocates have said that such measures are not the entire solution.
“Although the legislation is presented as an effort to strengthen the enforcement against illegal and untaxed vapor products, it would ultimately reduce the effective tax rate on e-cigarettes and vapor products in New York, making these products more affordable and appealing, particularly to our youth,” American Heart Association’s Capital Region Board of Directors Chair Dr. Kaweeda G. Adams said. “It is this disconnect with the bill that provides the advantages to tobacco industries’ interests and lacks the key provisions necessary for the State Department of Taxation and Finance to effectively enforce tax collection and combat illicit sales.”
Proposed during the 2025-26 legislative session, Senate Bill S5196A prohibits the storage of flavored vapor products near where vapor or tobacco products are sold at retail or wholesale. The measure is in committee.
“One of the other loopholes that we see is that, with regard to the State of New York, this policy change has the potential of sending the wrong message at a time when youth e-cigarette use remains a significant public health concern, and when states should be strengthening and not weakening tobacco control measures,” Adams said. “We know that the younger a person starts in some of these gateway activities, it leads to more severe and more concerning addiction and behaviors as they move into adulthood.”
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Meanwhile, major tobacco companies and e-cigarette manufacturers generally state that e-cigarettes are intended as a lower-risk alternative to help adult smokers switch away from traditional cigarettes. They also have consistently denied the intentional targeting of youth in marketing.
The students from Reality Check said otherwise.
“They look fruity. They look really good, and they’re targeted toward teens,” Yeong said. “I’ve also seen a lot of ZYNs ads recently that are really colorful. They’re full of little fruit animations, and they honestly look like soda animations that I might see at the theater, and it’s just really concerning, downplaying the severity of it.”
Beyond the health impacts, there are environmental concerns with widespread effects, as well.
“I think sometimes young people don’t care that much about their health, immediate health, because they think, ‘I’m invincible.’ But they do care a lot about the environment, and there’s an enormous impact of not just the waste, but the production, the consumption, and then the waste that’s produced,” Orr said. “It’s the lithium batteries that can explode, that leak. It’s the plastics that break down into microplastics that go into wildlife, into our bodies. Then, there are toxic chemicals also that leach into the environment.”
The Reality Check students noted one volunteering event where they went to a local park to clean up and found hundreds of cigarette butts.
“Cigarette butts are not biodegradable. So, your animals, little kids can wander by, pick them up, like, possibly even eat them sometimes,” Yeong said. “Vape containers, equally bad. They contain micro plastics.”
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The quantity is staggering.
“There are 5.7 single-use vapes that are discarded every second in the United States. That’s a half a million every day, and people don’t think about that,” Orr said. “We think a lot about single-use plastics. We don’t use plastic straws anymore, so a lot of people are carrying the metal straws. You don’t have plastic bags that you send out, that the grocery stores used to give out. We don’t do that anymore. But then here are all these disposable vapes that are just being tossed after use.”
So, what can be done about it?
Over the summer, students attended the annual Reality Check Youth Summit, honing their advocacy skills against tobacco and e-cigarette marketing at SUNY Oswego.
“We met with a whole bunch of teens from all around the state, and we talked about how we’ve tried to help our community,” Mohammed said. “We’ve done ways to educate people on it, making posters, which is one of the activities that we did to show how we can use activism to spread our message to other communities.”
Misra said that although the education is available in health classes, students aren’t paying attention.
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“They use it as a free way to just have fun,” she said. “On top of that, the advertising is targeted.”
That’s where local communities come in.
“The New York State Law, the sale of flavored vapes, that should really be enforced, and these products should not be out there,” Orr said. “Even if the state doesn’t do anything about it, communities locally actually have the authority to do something about it. They have the authority to decide what they’re going to sell, where they’re going to sell it, and so you can have a huge impact in your local community.”
