I disagree, they could care less. This has very little to do with what drive teen vice use, the danger/badness is part of the equation. If you take away cigarettes and vaping, they’ll just move on to marijuana or heroin, or maybe glue. Nothing about “what’s healthy” is driving their choice here.

> If you take away cigarettes and vaping, they’ll just move on to marijuana or heroin, or maybe glue. Nothing about “what’s healthy” is driving their choice here.

This claim is pretty strongly refuted by all available evidence, given that (before vaping), tobacco use among teenagers had been in a consistent decline for decades, without a corresponding consistent increase in marijuana or heroin use among teenagers.

Even if tobacco use was decreasing, that doesn’t mean something else wasn’t increasing in its stead. It could have been ridlin, opioids, meth, etc...I’m not sure what the popular bad stuff between 2000-2010 was, perhaps some younger HN readers could fill us in.

> Even if tobacco use was decreasing, that doesn’t mean something else wasn’t increasing in its stead. It could have been ridlin, opioids, meth, etc...I’m not sure what the popular bad stuff between 2000-2010 was, perhaps some younger HN readers could fill us in.

As someone who used to work in drug policy during this exact time period and has a very strong grasp of the facts on the matter, I can assure you that your speculation is entirely without merit. Teen tobacco use decreased. It didn't pawn off those would-be tobacco users onto other drugs, as if drugs were some fully fungible entity in teenagers' minds. Teen tobacco use decreased, full-stop.

Maybe you could go find some evidence for your pet theory before considering that pet theory to be accurate?