As a growing number of countries move to prohibit vaping, it could be easy to forget that smoking is a far more dangerous habit.
The World Health Organisation estimates that a colossal eight million people globally die from smoking every year. Half of all regular smokers will die early, losing on average 10 years of life.
Meanwhile, evidence shows that vaping does not lead to any significant health issues.
Now, a new study has confirmed that vaping is by far the most popular tool used by ex-smokers in America who have successfully quit.
The study, published in scientific journal Internal and Emergency Medicine, found that an estimated 2.9 million US adults had stopped smoking (for six months or more) over a 12-month period. This is 10 per cent of the 29 million Americans who smoked regularly at the time of the data in 2022.
Vast majority of ex-smokers used vapes to quit
The tool that most ex-smokers said they used to help them quit for good was ‘nicotine products’ (53.9 per cent, or 1.5 million people). The vast majority of this group used vapes (80 per cent or 1.2 million people), either alone or in combination with other methods.
There have been widely reported fears that using vapes to quit cigarettes is simply switching one (albeit far less dangerous) addiction for another. But the study shows that of those who used vapes to stop smoking, a third (30.7 per cent) had already given them up too by the time of the survey.
The least commonly reported ways to give up smoking were ‘non-nicotine, non-prescription drug methods’ (6.3 per cent). These include quit lines, counselling or clinics, classes and/or groups.
In the same 12-month period, a further 13.1 million people had tried to stop smoking but been unsuccessful.
Those who successfully quit more likely to have used vapes
The researchers found that those who had successfully quit smoking were more likely to have used vapes to help them than those who had tried but failed to give up.
The study says: “Adults who stopped smoking completely are more likely to report using e-cigarettes than those who tried but did not stop smoking.
“These findings may support the basis for harm reduction in tobacco control.”
The study says its findings suggest that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – which has legal jurisdiction over vapes in the U.S. – should incorporate the products into its efforts to reduce smoking rates in the country.
It says: “While noting the necessity of preventing access to nicotine products by non smoking populations such as adolescents, the high prevalence of e-cigarette use to stop smoking in this study may provide support for FDA’s “nicotine-focused framework for public health”, which describes non-combustible nicotine products as “a promising foundation for a comprehensive approach to tobacco harm reduction.”
Pointing to the low number of smokers using government-backed schemes such as quit-clinics to kick the habit, the study says: “While non-pharmacological methods clearly work for some adults and should not be discouraged, given the urgency of the need to reduce morbidity and mortality from cigarette smoking, it may be preferable from a public health perspective to encourage adults who smoke to try the most efficacious stop-smoking methods [vapes] first.”
‘Potential to benefit adults who smoke’
It also notes that the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) state that “[e]-cigarettes have the potential to benefit adults who smoke… if used as a complete substitute for regular cigarettes.”
The NHIS 2022 data did not, however, explicitly survey some more recent stop-smoking methods, such as nicotine pouches, snus, heat-not-burn or heated tobacco products, and others. It recommends that these be surveyed in future questionnaires.
While most people know the dangers of smoking, it can be very difficult to stop unaided.
A Public Health England report in 2021 found that the quit success rate for smoking when using a vape is between 60 and 74 per cent. And a recent survey by health charity Action on Smoking and Health found that among all former smokers who stopped in the previous five years, over half (nearly three million people) said they used a vape to do so.
In short, vapes have achieved what decades of government-funded initiatives have failed to do – they’re getting people to give up smoking.
