Teens who start vaping are nearly three times more likely to go on to smoke cigarettes than their peers who don't use any type of tobacco product, a new study finds. The results are alarming for both medical experts - who would rather kids not smoke - and for the e-cigarette industry, which is increasingly marketing¹ its products as smoking-cessation tools for adults.

一项新研究发现：抽电子烟的青少年未来抽香烟的可能性几乎是不抽任何烟草产品的青少年的三倍。对于不建议青少年吸烟的医学专家和电子烟行业（该行业正将其产品标榜为成年人的戒烟工具）而言，这一结果令人震惊。

Today's study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, couldn't say whether vaping caused the kids to go on to smoking. But the study authors did find some pretty strong associations between vaping and later cigarette smoking, particularly for kids who would normally be considered "low risk" for substance use: the ones that aren't big on thrill-seeking, drinking, or misusing² prescription³ drugs. The findings are especially timely in light of the Food and Drug Administration's recent announcement that 3.6 million high school and middle school students used e-cigarettes in 2018.

该研究发表在《美国医学协会杂志》开放网站上，且并未说明抽电子烟是否是导致青少年后期继续抽烟的直接原因。但研究作者的确发现抽电子烟与后期抽香烟之间存在强烈关联，对于那些通常被认为"低风险"药物使用的青少年而言更是如此：这些青少年并不热衷于寻求刺激、饮酒或滥用处方类药物。美国食品药品监管局于近日宣布：2018年共计360万高中生和初中生抽电子烟，在这一背景下，这些研究发现尤为及时。

The paper comes on the heels of a major clinical study that showed e-cigarettes helped a small proportion of adult smokers⁴ quit cigarettes. The back-to-back publications show the tightrope⁵ on which regulators and the e-cigarette industry are walking: on one hand, e-cigarettes may wind up being a useful tool for helping⁶ adults stop smoking. On the other hand, there's a growing body of evidence that they act as what FDA commissioner⁷ Scott Gottlieb has called an "on ramp⁸" to the more dangerous, combustible⁹ kind of cigarette.

一项重大临床研究紧随该研究之后，表明：电子烟帮助一小部分成年人成功戒烟。一篇接一篇的论文研究表明监管机构和电子烟产业正在走钢丝：一方面，电子烟可能会成为辅助成年人戒烟的有效工具。另一方面，越来越多的证据表明：电子烟的作用与美国食品药品监管局专员斯科特·戈特利布（Scott Gottlieb）所述一致--通往更危险的可燃香烟的"匝道"。

"These two papers highlight the conundrum¹⁰ public health policymakers are faced with," says Gideon St. Helen, a tobacco researcher at the University of California, San Francisco who was not involved in the research, in an email to The Verge¹¹.

"这两项研究强调了公共卫生政策制定者所面临的难题，"加州大学旧金山分校的烟草研究员吉迪恩·圣海伦（Gideon St. Helen）在写给The Verge杂志的电子邮件中写道，他并未参与这项研究。

There are a few limitations, including that the study looks at a window of time before Juul really took off, says Michael Ong, a professor of medicine and public health at UCLA who didn't participate in the study. That means the results aren't a perfect window into the e-cigarette market of today.

加州大学洛杉矶分校的医学和公共卫生学教授迈克尔·翁（Michael Ong）说道，这些研究存在一些局限性，比如研究是在Juul电子烟爆红之前开展的，迈克尔教授也没有参与这项研究。这意味着研究结果并不是反映当今电子烟市场的完美窗口。