To the Editor:

Re “Teenagers Pick Up E-Cigarettes as Old-School Smoking Declines” (front page, April 17): The announcement by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that cigarette use among teenagers fell by 25 percent as e-cigarette use tripled from 2013 to 2014 suggests that e-cigarettes may not only help smokers quit, but they may also rapidly replace cigarettes used among youth.

This bodes well for public health, since most health professionals agree that e-cigarettes, which release vapor, are less harmful than their traditional combustible counterparts. But many jurisdictions are quickly putting policies in place to restrict their use, which may prevent smokers from switching to healthier nicotine alternatives.

E-cigarettes, while not completely harmless, pose a substantially lower risk to health than cigarettes, which kill about six million people a year. Any product that has the potential to help reduce this enormous health burden, and possibly eradicate cigarette use, should not be restricted uncritically.

SHARON HOPE GREEN

New York

The writer is a graduate research assistant at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.