Introduction:
A substantial number of e-cigarette users worldwide are adolescents and for many of them e-cigarette is the first contact with nicotine, often because their attractiveness. The objective of this analysis is to explore the reasons for trying, perceived content of e-cigarette and the relationship with tobacco at the onset of use among adolescents in Europe.

Material and Methods:
Data were obtained from European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) conducted in 2019 in 35 European countries on a total sample of 102,484 students born in 2003.

Results:
In 2019, almost every fourth (23%) 16 years old student in ESPAD countries never used tobacco but tried e-cigarettes. This indicator shows high variations across countries with the highest prevalence in Cyprus and Monaco (39%) and Spain and Lithuania (35%) and the lowest in Norway (11%) and North Macedonia and Montenegro (12%), Serbia (13%) and Croatia (14%). Significantly lower percentage (4.2%) of students regularly used tobacco when they first tried e-cigarette. Curiosity was the reason for trying e-cigarette for 30% of the total sample of students, and for 1.7% it was to stop smoking. Almost every third student (33%) in the total sample of students from 13 ESPAD countries that included this question in the survey, thought that the e-cigarette they used contained nicotine. The risk perception of e-cigarettes is low, with 6% of students perceiving trying e-cigarettes once or twice as a great risk.

Conclusions:
The results indicate that e-cigarettes are rarely used by adolescents to reduce harm and stop smoking and at the same time point out low risk perception and knowledge on e-cigarette content. Results call for interventions that would reduce attractiveness, raise awareness on the evidence-based findings about these products and at minimum restrict marketing and promotion of e-cigarette to ensure it is aimed at adults.