Youngsters are using e-cigarettes thinking that is harmless.

If you are in the general perception that e-cigarette is one of the safe options to minimize the consumption of harmful tobacco, better correct it now as the US Surgeon General confirmed that using e-cigarettes comes with significant and avoidable health risk to young people.

Indian American Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said on Thursday that “we already know that e-cigarettes have the potential to cause lasting harm to the health of young users. Most contain nicotine, a highly addictive drug that can damage normal development of the brain – a process that continues until about age 25.”

The warning from the Surgeon General is very relevant as a new report found increasing number of youngsters using e-cigarettes thinking that is harmless.

According to the report published by the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, the number of people below the age of 25 using tobacco products such as cigarettes and smokeless tobacco has declined in the recent years but the use of e-cigarettes by this age group increased exponentially.

The report says during 2011 and 2015 an estimate of nearly 2.4 million high school students and about 620,000 middle school students were using e-cigarettes at least once a month.

Murthy said advertising was partly to blame, writing in a statement:

“As [e-cigarettes] have been advertised more heavily, they have become much more popular among youth in middle and high school, and among young adults ages 18-25. One of every 6 high school students has used e-cigarettes in the past 30 days, and these products are now more popular with middle and high school students than traditional cigarettes.”

According a survey conducted in 2014 on 22,000 middle and high school students, children who are exposed to e-cigarette advertising are more likely to use. It is notable that advertisement spending for e-cigarette rose from $6.4 million in 2011 to an estimated $115 million in 2014.

The report also says that the use of e—cigarettes are causing addition among youngsters, blame the nicotine present in e-cigarettes that affects the brain.

“Some studies show that non-smoking youth who use e-cigarettes are more likely to try conventional cigarettes in the future than non-smoking youth who do not use e-cigarettes,” the report says, and notes that “among high school students and young adults who use tobacco, more use both e-cigarettes and burned tobacco products than use e-cigarettes alone.”

Earlier this year, the FDA made more stringent regulations to control the use of e-cigarette. The new law doesn’t allow children below the age of 18 to consume e-cigarette and also asks the companies to disclose content used in the vapor.