By Brady Dennis, Washington Post

The ads have popped up everywhere in recent years, from TV commercials featuring celebrities to model-adorned magazine spreads to banners splashed across websites. E-cigarette marketing has become so ubiquitous that it now reaches more than two-thirds of U.S. middle and high school students, according to a report Tuesday — a development that some public health officials argue is prompting more teens to use the devices and threatening decades of progress in combating youth tobacco use.

“It’s the Wild West out there when it comes to e-cigarette advertising,” said Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released the data. “It’s no coincidence that as the advertising has skyrocketed, the use of e-cigarettes has skyrocketed.”

CDC’s findings were drawn from the 2014 National Youth Tobacco Survey, which included a representative sample of more than 22,000 middle and high school students. Nearly 70 percent — an estimated 18.3 million students — reported having seen e-cigarette marketing in at least one setting that year.

Read the whole story