RESUMEN
OBJECTIVES: We aimed to document the social factors encouraging and discouraging e-cigarette use amongst Latino college students. PARTICIPANTS: Participants were second-generation Latino male college students. METHODS: We interviewed 20 second-generation Latino male college students, 10 regular smokers and 10 infrequent smokers, at the University of California, Irvine and the University of California, Riverside. RESULTS: Regular and infrequent smokers present similar motivations that either encourage or discourage e-cigarette use. Repeated peer-exposure, skepticism of the harmfulness of recreational use, and disagreement with familial views of substance use encourage e-cigarette use. High costs, weak nicotine euphoria, and evidence of health risks discourage e-cigarette use. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that motivations for e-cigarette use in Latino college students are similar to those of young, non-Latinos and that regular and infrequent users may be determined by temporal circumstances and opportunity as opposed to unique social factors. Further research is warranted to comprehensively investigate this phenomenon.