In brief: More youngsters using e-cigarettes

WASHINGTON – More teens are trying out e-cigarettes than the real thing, according to the government’s annual drug use survey.

Researchers were surprised at how many eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders reported using electronic cigarettes this year, even as regular smoking by teens dropped to new lows.

Nearly 9 percent of eighth-graders said they had used an e-cigarette in the previous month, while just 4 percent reported smoking a traditional cigarette, said the report being released today by the National Institutes of Health.

Use increased with age: About 16 percent of 10th-graders had tried an e-cigarette in the past month, and 17 percent of high school seniors. Regular smoking continued inching down, to 7 percent of 10th-graders and 14 percent of 12th-graders.

“I worry that the tremendous progress that we’ve made over the last almost two decades in smoking could be reversed on us by the introduction of e-cigarettes,” said University of Michigan professor Lloyd Johnston, who leads the annual Monitoring the Future survey of more than 41,000 students.

E-cigarettes often are described as a less dangerous alternative for regular smokers who can’t or don’t want to kick the habit. The battery-powered devices produce vapor infused with potentially addictive nicotine, but without the same chemicals and tar of tobacco cigarettes.

E-cigarettes began to appear in the U.S. in 2006, but this was the first year that the Monitoring the Future survey asked teens about them.

Family immigration center unveiled

DILLEY, Texas – The Obama administration on Monday unveiled a former oil field workers’ camp in rural South Texas that’s being converted into the nation’s largest family immigration detention center, as federal authorities brace for the possibility that mothers and children may again come pouring across the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson visited the 50-acre compound featuring 80 tan, two-bedroom, one-bathroom cottages connected by dirt roads and newly laid grass sod in Dilley, about 70 miles southwest of San Antonio.

The first wave of about 30 immigrants will begin arriving in coming weeks and the cabins will eventually hold up to 480 people. Housing being constructed nearby will push capacity to 2,400 by about May.

Advocates say immigrant families are often fleeing drug or gang violence in Central America and should be released to relatives already in the U.S., rather than being locked up. The daily cost of family detention is about $296 per person, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, nearly double the average cost of holding adults as estimated by the National Immigration Forum advocacy group.

Women and children at Dilley will remain until they are deported, released on bond or begin immigration court proceedings that could allow them to stay in the United States. ICE says 70 percent of immigrant families released into the U.S. never showed up for follow-up appointments – part of the reason the agency is adding detention capacity.