The percentage of middle and high school students in the United States that use electronic cigarettes more than doubled from 2011 to 2012, according to new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The findings from the National Youth Tobacco Survey, reported in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, show that the percentage of high school students reporting use of electronic cigarettes increased from 4.7 percent in 2011 to 10.0 percent in 2012. During that same time frame, high school students reporting use of electronic cigarettes in the past 30 days increased from 1.5 percent to 2.8 percent. Use of the product also doubled among middle school students. In 2012, more than 1.78 million middle and high school students in the U.S. tried electronic cigarettes.

“The increased use of e-cigarettes by teens is deeply troubling,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H.  “Nicotine is a highly addictive drug.  Many teens who start with e-cigarettes may be condemned to struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine and conventional cigarettes.”

The National youth Tobacco survey also revealed that 76.3 percent of middle and high school students that used electronic cigarettes within the last 30 days had also smoked conventional cigarettes in that time frame as well. Only 1 in every 5 middle school students that reported electronic cigarette use said they had never tried conventional cigarettes. This has raised concerns that electronic cigarettes might be an entry point for conventional tobacco use.

“About 90 percent of all smokers begin smoking as teenagers,” said Tim McAfee, M.D., M.P.H., director of the CDC Office on Smoking and Health.  “We must keep our youth from experimenting or using any tobacco product. These dramatic increases suggest that developing strategies to prevent marketing, sales, and use of e-cigarettes among youth is critical.”

Electronic cigarettes are battery powered devices that provide doses of nicotine and other additives in an aerosol form. They are not marketed for therapeutic purposes and not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. However, the FDA Center for Tobacco Products has announced that it intends to expand jurisdiction to include these products, but no regulatory rules have been issued yet.

“These data show a dramatic rise in usage of e-cigarettes by youth, and this is cause for great concern as we don’t yet understand the long-term effects of these novel tobacco products,” said Mitch Zeller, director of FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. “These findings reinforce why the FDA intends to expand its authority over all tobacco products and establish a comprehensive and appropriate regulatory framework to reduce disease and death from tobacco use.”

Although some electronic cigarette products are marketed as smoking cessation aids, to date there is no conclusive scientific evidence to suggest that they successfully promote long term quitting.