New York Youth Tobacco Use Falls to Record Low – Time to Reconsider Prohibition

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Key Points:

• Record Low Youth Use: The 2024 New York Youth Tobacco Survey shows only 17 percent of high school students used any tobacco product in the past 30 days – the lowest rate since 2000. Cigarette smoking fell to 2.4 percent, a more than 90 percent decline from 27.1 percent in 2000.

• Youth Vaping Decline: E-cigarette use among New York teens peaked at 27.4 percent in 2018 but has since dropped by 52.2 percent to 13.1 percent in 2024. Nationally, vaping fell even further – down 71.6 percent since 2019. These trends show youth nicotine use is falling without the need for new bans.

• Policy Disconnect: Despite record-low youth use, New York maintains some of the nation’s harshest restrictions, including a flavored vape ban enacted in 2020. Neighboring Connecticut, which allows flavored products, reports nearly identical youth vaping rates (11.5 percent in 2023), suggesting flavor bans don’t drive youth declines.

• Adult Harm Reduction: In 2023, 952,000 New Yorkers were current e-cigarette users – many of them former smokers. Adult vaping rose 49 percent between 2016 and 2023, yet state policies continue to limit safer options that help adults quit smoking.

• Illicit Market Expansion: The flavor ban fueled a black market for disposable vapes, costing the state tax revenue and enforcement dollars. Authorities seized hundreds of thousands of banned products in 2024–2025, and an estimated 70 percent of undercover purchases in NYC lacked collected sales tax. New York now faces costly disposal expenses and lost revenue, similar to its long-running cigarette smuggling problem (51.8 percent of cigarettes untaxed).

• Retailer Compliance Strong: From January 2024 to September 2025, the FDA inspected 12,333 retailers, with only 18 percent violations statewide. Just 11.8 percent of violations involved e-cigarettes, while cigars made up over two-thirds, proving responsible retailers aren’t driving youth access.

• Public Health Reality: Youth tobacco use in New York is at a historic low, yet adult smokers face shrinking access to the very tools helping them quit. Prohibitionist policies haven’t improved youth outcomes but have spurred illicit trade, drained tax revenue, and punished adults seeking harm reduction.

• Policy Takeaway: New York’s data prove that education and enforcement work – not prohibition. It’s time for lawmakers to rethink the state’s flavor ban and adopt a science-based, harm-reduction approach that protects youth while supporting adults who want to quit smoking.

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The New York State Tobacco Control Program recently announced that tobacco use among high school students has fallen to its lowest level since 2000. The Department of Health celebrated this as a “major public health achievement,” though it cautioned that “far too many young people” still use tobacco and nicotine products. Policymakers should embrace these findings as evidence that youth tobacco use continues to reach record lows, and that use of newer harm reduction products like e-cigarettes has declined substantially.

According to the 2024 New York Youth Tobacco Survey, only 17 percent of high school students reported using any tobacco product in the past 30 days. That total includes 2.4 percent who smoked cigarettes, 13.1 percent who vaped, and 9.9 percent who used other tobacco products. These figures represent historic progress: in 2000, more than one in three New York high schoolers (33.6 percent) reported current tobacco use, including 27.1 percent who were smokers. Over the past 24 years, youth tobacco use in New York has dropped by nearly half, and smoking has declined by more than 90 percent.

While policymakers have focused heavily on youth vaping in recent years, the data tell a clear story of rapid decline. E-cigarette use among New York high school students peaked in 2018 at 27.4 percent – almost identical to the national peak of 27.5 percent in 2019. By 2024, youth vaping in the state had dropped by 52.2 percent, and overall tobacco use had declined by 44.4 percent. Nationally, high school vaping fell by an even greater 71.6 percent, with only 7.8 percent of U.S. high schoolers reporting current use in 2024. These declines demonstrate that youth nicotine use is trending downward, regardless of flavor bans or new restrictions.

Despite these encouraging numbers, New York continues to impose some of the nation’s harshest restrictions on adult access to harm reduction products. The state banned the sale of flavored e-cigarettes in May 2020, while neighboring Connecticut – where such products remain legal – has reported similarly low youth vaping rates. According to the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, only 11.5 percent of Connecticut high schoolers used e-cigarettes in 2023, slightly lower than New York’s 13.1 percent in 2024. This suggests that banning flavored products did little to improve youth outcomes while simultaneously limiting safer options for adults seeking to quit smoking.

In 2023, more than 952,000 adults in New York were current e-cigarette users, many of whom had used these products to quit smoking and stay smoke-free. Adult vaping continues to rise even as youth use declines. Between 2016 and 2023, adult vaping increased by nearly 49 percent, with almost half of adult vapers between the ages of 25 and 44 in 2023. For these adults, New York’s prohibition on flavored vapor products has removed an important off-ramp from smoking.

The flavor ban also created an unintended but predictable consequence: a thriving illicit market. The ban did not eliminate flavored vapes but instead drove sales underground, depriving the state of excise and sales tax revenue and increasing enforcement costs. Recent actions by the governor, attorney general, and New York City have exposed a vast underground market in flavored disposables and nicotine products, with hundreds of thousands of banned devices seized in 2024–2025. Investigations show that roughly 70 percent of undercover flavored vape purchases in New York City did not include collected sales tax, highlighting major revenue losses. The city has already allocated over $1 million just to dispose of confiscated vapes. These developments mirror longstanding issues with cigarette tax evasion – The Tax Foundation estimates that more than half (51.8 percent) of cigarettes consumed in New York are smuggled or otherwise untaxed.

Meanwhile, compliance data suggest that New York retailers are largely following the law when it comes to youth sales. Between January 2024 and September 2025, the FDA conducted 12,333 inspections of tobacco and nicotine retailers across the state, finding violations in about 18 percent of cases. Only 260 of those violations involved e-cigarettes, representing just 11.8 percent of all infractions, while cigar sales to minors accounted for more than two-thirds. These results indicate that responsible retailers are not the source of the youth vaping problem.

Rather than doubling down on failed prohibitions that hurt adult consumers, policymakers should focus on enforcement against bad actors while restoring access to regulated, reduced-risk products. New York’s youth tobacco use is at an all-time low, yet its adult smokers – nearly one million of whom have already turned to vaping – face shrinking options due to misguided restrictions. The state’s approach has yielded little additional benefit to youth while generating costly illicit trade, lost tax revenue, and barriers to harm reduction. It is time for New York to rethink its strategy and align public health policy with science and consumer reality.

Nothing in this analysis is intended to influence the passage of legislation, and it does not necessarily represent the views of Tobacco Harm Reduction 101.