While the days of rebellious teens hiding cigarette packs in their shirt sleeves may be a thing of the past, youth are increasingly getting their nicotine fix in the form of e-cigarettes.

A national report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed e-cigarette usage among high school students rose from 4.5 percent in 2013 to 13.4 percent in 2014.

Trends in Wisconsin follow those of the nation, with the state reporting 8 percent of high school students use e-cigarettes.

Ryan Sheahan, coordinator for the Tobacco Free Columbia Dane County Coalition, said this rise is due partly to the lack of FDA regulations on e-cigarettes.

“There are zero regulations on these products,”  Sheahan said.

Sheahan explained this lack of regulation stretches across many aspects of e-cigarettes, from the way the are advertised to how they are sold.

He said even the placement of e-cigarettes in stores can have an impact on youth usage.

“[E-cigarettes] don’t have to be behind the counter at all like cigarettes do,” he said. “E-cigarettes could be on the counter next to the the candy aisle and right at eye level with youth.”

The many flavors e-cigarettes offer is also a clear tactic of marketing specifically to youth, Sheahan said.

The dangers of e-cigarettes are still not completely understood, Sheahan said.

“The science is still out,” he said. “We’re still waiting on studies, but there’s no proof that this is a safe product.”

He did note, however, various aspects of e-cigarettes that are very dangerous to their users. Some dangers include heavy metals, fine particles and formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, as ingredients in e-cigarettes.

He also noted to dangers that nicotine can have on the adolescent brain.

“Nicotine is very dangerous to the adolescent brain,” Sheahan said. “Youth brains are still developing at middle school and high school ages and so when you consume that amount of nicotine in these products it can change the structure of the brain.”

The use of tobacco products by youth in Dane County has also been on the rise, which Sheahan attributed partly to education around the product.

Dane County sees increase in tobacco purchases by minors in 2014

He said continuing community education about e-cigarettes is critical to ending its use among youth. In many cases, he said, the education helps adults familiarize themselves with e-cigarettes and what they look like.

Sheahan said moving forward he hopes to see more government regulation on e-cigarettes.

“In an ideal world, the FDA, the federal government, would regulate these products at a strong level … and really focusing on the overall education of these products,” he said. “The fact that we don’t know that there are safe alternatives, [and] until we receive those studies of public health, we need to proceed with caution.”