Can vaping help people quit smoking? It's unlikely
Retrieved on:
Wednesday, May 3, 2023
Its two primary objectives are to make it harder for children and non-smokers to access vapes and to allow people trying to quit smoking to access nicotine vapes with a prescription.
Key Points:
- Its two primary objectives are to make it harder for children and non-smokers to access vapes and to allow people trying to quit smoking to access nicotine vapes with a prescription.
- Vapes are unquestionably popular, with many who vape saying they are trying to quit or to cut down on cigarettes.
Myth of the ‘hardened smokers’
- First, let’s bust a widely believed myth.
- With smoking at an all time low, some experts argue today’s smokers are the die-hard addicts: frequently relapsing smokers who just can’t quit.
- Whenever this hypothesis has been tested it has been found wanting.
Vapes don’t help smokers cut back
- Studies of the number of cigarettes foregone by vapers who still smoke have shown that, compared with smokers who never vape, the average daily cigarette consumption is very similar.
- The authors concluded:
No statistically significant associations were found between changes in use of e-cigarettes […] while smoking and daily cigarette consumption. - No statistically significant associations were found between changes in use of e-cigarettes […] while smoking and daily cigarette consumption.
How effective are vapes in quitting?
- The most recent Cochrane review of randomised controlled trials compared vaping with nicotine replacement therapy (such as drugs, gums and patches).
- It found about 82% of people who vape are still smoking when followed up six or more months later.
- Neither nicotine replacement therapy or vapes are hugely disruptive of smoking.
What does the real-world evidence show?
- The best evidence we have about how vapes perform comes from studies where large numbers of vapers are followed for several years.
- I’ve summarised 16 other reviews and expert group conclusions of the evidence published since 2017.
The upshot?
- The prescription vapes access scheme’s most important population effect is likely to be that it will massively reduce access to vapes by children.
- State governments will start hitting retailers illegally selling with massive fines and Border Security will do the same with importing suppliers.
- Taiwan fines sellers a maximum of US$1.65 million, with a minimum of US$330,000.