Misused Stats

So, here we are again – faced with headlines screeching that “kids who vape are three times more likely to start smoking.” Cue pearl-clutching pundits, moral panic, and the inevitable calls to ban things that glow in the dark. But let’s just hit pause and ask the one question none of these breathless articles ever do:

Compared to what?

Because if you want to claim that vaping is a gateway to smoking, you need to prove more than just correlation. You need to demonstrate that it actually causes a net increase in smoking. And here’s the problem: none of these studies do that. They don’t measure what proportion of vapers would have taken up smoking anyway. They don’t tell us how many would-be smokers vaped instead and didn’t go on to smoke. In fact, they don’t even try.

What we’ve got is a classic case of statistical misuse by omission. We’re given a relative risk figure – “three times more likely!” – but no base rate, no absolute numbers, and no context. If smoking rates are already in decline among youth (which they are), then even with a tripled risk among vapers, the total number of future smokers might still be falling. But you'd never know it from the headlines.

Worse still, this sort of lazy arithmetic gets trotted out as if it’s gospel. The moment a teenager touches a vape, it’s apparently only a matter of time before they’re chain-smoking Bensons behind the bike shed. Never mind that the overwhelming majority of youth vapers are also experimenters, not daily users – or that nicotine dependence among teens is lower today than it was during the Marlboro Man’s heyday.

Public health messaging built on this sort of half-baked inference does real harm. It distracts from targeted regulation, misinforms parents, and hands ammunition to prohibitionists who’d rather ban things than understand them.

Here’s a radical thought: if you want to know whether vaping leads to more smoking, try measuring the total number of smokers – before and after vaping became widespread – and control for socioeconomic and behavioural factors. Until then, shouting “gateway!” based on relative risk is the intellectual equivalent of saying umbrellas cause rain.

Let’s not pretend we’re doing science when we’re really just spinning fear for headlines.