--- title: How Americans Are Using E-Cigarettes description: A new federal report looks at e-cigarette use among American adults canonical: https://time.com/4089839/13-of-americans-have-tried-e-cigarettes/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-28T13:46:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T12:07:31.453Z article:section: Health og:title: How Americans Are Using E-Cigarettes og:description: A new federal report looks at e-cigarette use among American adults og:url: https://time.com/4089839/13-of-americans-have-tried-e-cigarettes/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt828f1d655b71f82b/6987788ecd1bba3a1e6f47f4/e-cig-electronic-cigarette-smoke-4.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME.com stock photos E-Cig Electronic Cigarette Smoke og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Americans Are Using E-Cigarettes twitter:description: A new federal report looks at e-cigarette use among American adults twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt828f1d655b71f82b/6987788ecd1bba3a1e6f47f4/e-cig-electronic-cigarette-smoke-4.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 13% of Americans Have Tried E-Cigarettes by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Oct 28, 2015 1:46 PM UTC  Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Oct 28, 2015 1:46 PM UTC Close to 13% of American adults have tried an e-cigarette, according to new federal data published Wednesday by the the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics. They also found that more than half of current cigarette smokers who tried quitting in the last year had tried an e-cigarette. Around 20% of those people said they were current e-cigarette smokers. “In light of ongoing declines in conventional cigarette smoking prevalence, it is important to understand the extent to which e-cigarettes are being used among U.S. adults, both overall and by conventional cigarette smoking status,” the report authors write. E-cigarettes have been advertised as an alternative to conventional cigarettes and as a quitting tool for some people. Use of e-cigarettes declined with age and overall about 3.7% of adults in the U.S. currently used them. The researchers also found that use of e-cigs in 2014 was highest among people who were current smokers or were recently former smokers. “One of the main findings is that a majority of e-cigarette use is among those who recently quit smoking,” says Dr. Avrum Spira, an e-cigarette researcher at Boston University. “That reflects a potential, albeit yet unproven, benefit of the e-cigarette product in terms of helping smokers switch to a potentially “safer”—not “safe” as we know little about consequence on exposure—product.” Spira was not involved in the study. The researchers found that overall, the percentage of people who had never smoked regular cigarettes but had tried e-cigarettes was 3.2%. The highest among that group were people between ages 18–24 at 9.7%. “That is a very high percentage and raises concern that young people are starting this product not as an attempt to quit smoking but rather as a new behavior,” says Spira. “Given that we do not yet know the health consequences of e-cigarettes and many of them contain nicotine which can be addictive, it is concerning that such a large fraction are starting to use this product.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4089839/13-of-americans-have-tried-e-cigarettes/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4089839/13-of-americans-have-tried-e-cigarettes/"},"headline":"13% of Americans Have Tried E-Cigarettes","datePublished":"2015-10-28T13:46:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T12:07:31.453Z","description":"A new federal report looks at e-cigarette use among American adults","url":"https://time.com/4089839/13-of-americans-have-tried-e-cigarettes/","keywords":["tobacco","Cigarettes","E-Cigarettes","e-cigs"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt828f1d655b71f82b/6987788ecd1bba3a1e6f47f4/e-cig-electronic-cigarette-smoke-4.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt828f1d655b71f82b/6987788ecd1bba3a1e6f47f4/e-cig-electronic-cigarette-smoke-4.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TIME.com stock photos E-Cig Electronic Cigarette Smoke","caption":"TIME.com stock photos E-Cig Electronic Cigarette Smoke","creditText":"Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/tobacco/","name":"tobacco"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4089839/13-of-americans-have-tried-e-cigarettes/","name":"13% of Americans Have Tried E-Cigarettes"}}]}] ```