Vaping emerges as top quit-smoking aid, helping 2.7 million Britons kick the habit, new ASH data reveals

New data from health charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) has found that vapes have been the most popular aid to quitting among those who have successfully stopped smoking in the last five years.

Their latest survey found that overall 5.6 million adults currently vape, 53 per cent who whom have stopped smoking, 39 per cent are still smoking and 8 per cent have never smoked.

Among all those who stopped smoking in the last five years just over half report they used a vape to quit equating to 2.7 million people. Of those a third have also stopped vaping and the average duration of their vaping was a year.

While there is now well established evidence that vaping is an effective aid to quitting smoking and less harmful than smoking, ASH said this new data shows the scale of quitting linked to smoking in recent years.

The charity has urged policy makers to ensure that regulations do not undermine the value of vapes as an aid for those smoking, even as it called for the urgent reintroduction of Tobacco and Vapes in order to address the levels of teenage vaping.

“Millions of people have used vapes to successfully stop smoking in recent years, increasing healthy life expectancy and improving the nation’s productivity. Tougher vape regulations are urgently needed, but it is important they are calibrated to address youth vaping while not deterring use of vapes as quitting aids,” Hazel Cheeseman, deputy chief executive of ASH, commented.

“Smoking is still the country’s biggest preventable killer and vaping is one of many tools needed to help smokers quit if we are to create a smokefree country for current as well as future generations. government must also communicate more effectively that vaping is less harmful than smoking but not risk free, and should only be used as an aid to quitting.”

Prof Sanjay Agrawal, Royal College of Physicians special advisor on tobacco and a consultant in respiratory and critical care medicine at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, added: “In the last few years almost all the patients I see who manage to quit smoking do so through vaping and without it I fear many of them would not have. Vapes are already being used by stop smoking services and NHS support for smokers but they could be used more widely in our efforts to help the millions still smoking quit.”

The survey has also shown high levels of public misperceptions about vaping with half of adults believing that vaping is as or more harmful than smoking when it is in fact much less harmful.

Commenting on the survey, Professor Leonie Brose, Professor of Addictions Public Health, from King’s College London, said:

“We urgently need to tackle the increase in dangerous misperceptions. More than half of people who smoke long-term will die prematurely due to smoking. Alarmingly, half of those who smoke think vaping is just as harmful or more harmful and almost as many are unaware that nicotine-containing medication is less harmful than smoking. These misperceptions are costing lives and we need continued focus on reducing the harms from smoking.”

Professor Lion Shahab, Professor of Health Psychology, from University College London, added: “The latest ASH results underline the important role e-cigarettes play in helping smokers stop, being used in half of successful quit attempts. Given increasing long-term use of e-cigarettes among ex-smokers, they also likely help maintain abstinence, while co-use with cigarettes may encourage further quit attempts among smokers. Overall, this use pattern provides a clear indication that e-cigarettes contribute to the eradication of combustible cigarettes in Great Britain, and public health policy should be aligned with this outcome.”