By Amy Harris
Maine youth are replacing cigarettes with alternative tobacco products, such as electronic vaping products and oral tobacco products like nicotine pouches. While overall rates of tobacco product use continue to fall across the state, the appeal of these other products for Maine’s 5th-12th graders remains concerning.
On Tuesday, April 14th, representatives from MaineHealth’s Center for Tobacco Independence (CTI) and Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hosted an hourlong seminar reviewing the latest findings of a statewide survey, called the Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey (MIYHS). This survey is administered to Maine students in grades 5-12 every other year. The survey is anonymous, voluntary, and administered in English in all public and quasi-public schools.
Tuesday’s presentation focused on the MIYHS questions about tobacco use. The MIYHS asks about use of the following tobacco products: cigarettes, cigars, electronic vapor products (vapes), snuff, dip, chewing tobacco, and dissolvable nicotine products or pouches, such as Zyn.
Bonnie Alper, a tobacco treatment and prevention educator from CTI, presented the findings specific to youth tobacco and nicotine product use. Hayley Pawlowski,, from Maine CDC, helped interpret statewide trends and discuss emerging patterns.
Nationwide and in Maine, use of electronic vapor products and oral tobacco products peaked in 2019, according to the national and Maine CDCs. This peak occurred as smokeless tobacco product users replaced falling numbers of cigarette smokers, thanks to aggressive marketing campaigns for electronic vaping products (EVPs) directed at younger consumers.
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MaineHealth CTI reports that youth may be drawn to EVPs because of their youth-targeted flavors, peer influence, and perceived stress relief benefit, and because they are more easily hidden than cigarettes.
Stricter legislation successfully curtailed marketing practices, raised taxes on products, and strengthened enforcement of age restrictions on EVP sales in the past six years. These actions, combined with successful public health education campaigns, have helped decrease how many youth use EVPs. Nevertheless, Alper believes that Maine youth’s use of all tobacco products, with the products’ known threats to health and the risk of lifetime addiction to nicotine, still remains too high.
In 2025, about 15% of the Maine high school students MIYHS surveyed had used tobacco products in the past 30 days. About 3% of Maine middle school students reported using tobacco products in the past 30 days. As Maine youth grow older, more of them report trying and currently using tobacco products.
About 26% of Maine high school students reported trying vaping at least once. Fewer high school students (13%) reported currently using a vape. More than half of the vaping products high schoolers used contained tobacco, and 29% of high school students vaped cannabis.
MIYHS data from 2025 show that youth tend to downplay the health risks of smokeless tobacco products. The health risks of smokeless tobacco use include higher rates of cancer, heart disease, lifetime addiction, gum disease, and tooth loss, according to the American Dental Association and the American Heart Association. The CDC warns that vaping products cause similar risks and contain heavy metals, fine particles, multiple chemicals that can cause cancer, and flavorings shown to increase the risk of lung disease.
Oral tobacco products are not smoked. Instead, they are placed in the mouth, between the gum, cheek, or lip. Oral nicotine pouches are popular with youth, said Alper, because they are more discreet than cigarettes or vapes, come in youth-friendly flavors like mint, and deliver a “quick nicotine buzz.”
About 6% of Maine 12th graders reported using oral tobacco products in the last 30 days. The younger they are, the less likely youth are to use oral tobacco products. About 2% of Maine 8th graders and 1% of Maine 5th graders reported using oral tobacco products in the past 30 days.
Researchers are still examining the long-term effects of exposure to harmful substances on young, developing brains . The CDC reports that using nicotine and/or cannabis during teenage years can permanently harm parts of the brain that control attention, learning, mood, and impulse control.
The MIYHS does not ask about immigration status, so it is harder to know rates of tobacco product use among Maine’s immigrant youth. The MIHYS does ask questions about race and ethnicity, but due to the small numbers of nonwhite youth in Maine’s largely white state population, the data becomes less accurate and more difficult to interpret. Rates of tobacco product use in Maine’s nonwhite youth are not significantly higher than rates of use among youth self-identifying as white.
A 2025 review of 30 research studies concluded that cultural values and practices can often be protective factors against alcohol and substance use in immigrant youth. In general, research shows that compared to adolescents and young adults from nonimmigrant backgrounds, those from immigrant backgrounds are generally less likely to misuse alcohol and other drugs, such as tobacco.
Immigrant youth also experience risk factors for alcohol and drug use. Social, cultural, and economic factors limit immigrant youth’s access to education, treatment, and prevention programs, psychiatrist Dr. Lisa R. Fortuna reported in a 2022 briefing prepared for the National Hispanic and Latino Mental Health Technology Transfer Center . Immigrant youth may be more likely to have disrupted education, limiting their access to school-based education programs. They are also less likely to have health insurance and access to a health care provider who would screen them for substance use, help teach them about the health risks of alcohol and other drug use, and refer them to mental health or substance use disorder treatment.
In Alper’s presentation, she encouraged parents and people who are concerned about a young adult’s tobacco use to start a conversation with the young adults. She suggested asking specific questions and using the same language that youth use, such as “Have you ever vaped?” or “Do you or your friends use Zyn?” Expressing concern with statements such as “I care about you and your health” can help build trust and seem less confrontational.
There are several quitting resources available to teens in Maine. The free My Life, My Quit program enrollment site is designed for youth ages 13-17, and Maine QuitLink is available to young people 18 and older. Interpreter services are offered free of charge for these programs. Keeping doors of communication open, and talking about the health risks of tobacco with youth early and often, are key ways to keep Maine’s young adults healthy and safe.
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the early May 2026 print edition of Amjambo Africa.
