Alternative tobacco use up in teenagers

Children younger than 18 are using different types of tobacco products more often across the state of Ohio.

Instead of smoking cigarettes, some students are chewing tobacco, or smoking cigars or flavored tobacco from a hookah, according to the American Lung Association in Ohio.

But these students who are expanding their tobacco use aren't just high school students. According to the study, 4.5 percent of middle school students have smoked cigarettes, compared with 16.7 percent of high school students.

The numbers are comparable to these figures throughout the different types of tobacco use. Between 3.5 percent and 3.9 percent of middle school students have used chewing tobacco, smoked a hookah or cigars or used Snus, a chewless tobacco. For high school students, the percentages are lower for chewing tobacco and Snus, 8.8 percent and 7 percent, respectively, with a spike for hookah use, at nearly 20 percent.
Locally, there isn't much going on in terms of prevention for students outside of the school walls.

Students are introduced to the harms of smoking in their health classes and through the D.A.R.E. or P.L.U.S. anti-drug programs, if their school districts use them.

The Peers Learning Usable Skills program will be cut because of lack of funding for the coming school year. The program is conducted by the Lake County Narcotics Agency.

Funding has been a problem across the county for youth smoking prevention programs, said Ron Graham, Lake County deputy health commissioner.

The Lake County General Health District is looking to partner with Lake Health in hopes of beginning programming, he said.

"We tend to be more of a smoking community in Lake County than in others," he said, adding he thinks it's time to create more options that address young smokers.

The conversations between the health district and Lake Health are just beginning. Graham said he hopes the partnership will make cessation programs affordable for adults and minors.

New data was collected in 2012, but it is unknown when that will be released. The latest statistics from the American Lung Association are from 2010.

Cigarette use has actually dipped from previous available records from 2008, as students seemingly favor other methods of using tobacco.