Before clinicians can help young adults quit vaping, it’s important to know what they think about vaping, how they’ve tried to quit and what methods they might try in the future.
UW-CTRI researchers asked 480 Wisconsin young adults, ages 18 to 24, who had vaped nicotine in the past month to complete an online survey assessing what they think about vaping. The survey also assessed perceived harms, physically and mentally, from vaping nicotine and other products (such as cannabis and cannabidiol).
They found that many young adults reported vaping patterns that go beyond occasional social use and are characteristic of addiction, such as vaping daily, vaping soon after waking and vaping alone.
- Bad for their health (67%).
- Expensive (66%).
- Addictive (53%).
- Disapproved by their family (33%).
UW-CTRI Researchers Dr. Jesse Kaye, Dr. Brian Williams and Dr. Megan Piper as well as UW-CTRI Outreach Program Director Karen Conner published the results in Wisconsin Medical Journal.
While 92 percent said they knew vaping wasn’t good for them before they started, most wished they knew more about the full extent of what vaping could do to their health.
“The good news is that our public health education efforts are working – young adults now know that vaping isn’t harmless,” said Piper, senior author. “But we still have our work cut out for us to help young adults who want to quit.”
Looking ahead, 67 percent wanted to quit at some point and 79 percent had tried. Yet the methods they had tried and what methods they would consider using in the future varied widely. The most used method to quit vaping was support from people already in their lives – friends, relatives or therapists. The least used methods tended to be quitlines, support groups, or teachers.
“Though 80% want support or treatment to stop vaping nicotine, their preferences were highly variable,” said Kaye, lead author. “There’s no one-size-fits-all intervention approach that will meet the needs and preferences of all young adults who want to quit vaping.”
The most common place where young adults found information about quitting vaping was on social media (42%). Of those who used social media, the most popular app was TikTok (72%).
Williams, a co-author, said these results show the need to spread the word to young adults about what evidence-based treatments are out there to help them quit vaping.
For example, the text program “This Is Quitting” was shown to increase quit rates among young adults by nearly 40 percent, compared to a control group, according to a 2021 randomized clinical trial published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Another separate JAMA paper showed impressive quit rates for young adults who tried varenicline to quit vaping. In addition to increasing public awareness about currently available interventions, it is important to continue to develop new vaping cessation interventions that are both effective and appealing to young adults who want to stop vaping.
Williams called for new clinical practice guidelines to help health care providers working with young people who want to quit vaping.
Vaping cannabis and nicotine
About 40 percent of participants had also vaped cannabis. Though young adults think that vaping nicotine is moderately-to-significantly harmful to their physical and mental health, they believe that vaping cannabis is significantly less harmful than vaping nicotine.
“These findings among young adults in Wisconsin mirror trends we see nationally; as cannabis becomes legal in more states and more widely available and commonly used, it is increasingly perceived as less harmful,” says Kaye. “Wisconsin is one of the few remaining states without a medical or adult use cannabis program, but I suspect that may change in the coming years. As the state legislature considers the cannabis landscape, it will be important to ensure that researchers and clinicians have a seat at the table to ensure that any policy changes are informed by the latest evidence to educate consumers, minimize potential harms and promote public health.”
UW-CTRI’s commitment to rigorous cannabis research and education was on display earlier this year when they co-hosted the inaugural UW-Madison Cannabis Research Conference.
Kaye JT, Williams BS, Conner KL, Bird J, Adsit R, Piper ME. (2025) Wisconsin Young Adults’ Attitudes, Beliefs, Motivations, and Behaviors Surrounding E-Cigarettes Use and Cessation. Wisconsin Medical Journal. 2025;124(2):129-134.
The research was supported by funding from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (MSN276077).