The percentage of U.S. high school senior students using e-cigarettes nearly doubled from 2017, according to a new survey released Monday by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Reported use of e-cigarettes specifically in the last 30 days nearly doubled among 10th and 12th graders, from 11 percent in 2017 to 20.9 percent in 2018, the survey said.
This was the largest single-year increase in the survey's 44-year history, the survey said.
The result was part of the 2018 Monitoring the Future survey, which studied around 45,000 students in the eighth, 10th and 12th grades throughout the United States to track trends in substance use by American teens.
The survey found that the percentage of all high school students who used e-cigarettes has risen by a third over the past year.
A total of 37.3 percent of 12th graders reported "any vaping" in the past 12 months, compared to 27.8 percent in 2017, the survey said.
More than 10.9 percent of 10th graders said they used e-cigarettes in the past year, the survey said.
The survey also found a significant jump in the perceived availability of e-cigarettes.
Around 45.7 percent of eighth graders and 66.6 percent of 10th graders said the vaping devices are "fairly easy" or "very easy" to get, the survey said.
Experts attributed the increase to newer versions of e-cigarettes which look like computer flash drives and can be used discreetly, according to the Associated Press (AP).
"They can put it in their sleeve or their pocket. They can do it wherever, whenever. They can do it in class if they're sneaky about it," Trina Hale, a junior student at South Charleston High School in West Virginia, told the AP.
