Vaping helps 50,000-70,000 smokers quit every year in the UK.

Addiction

Beard, E. et al., ‘Association of prevalence of electronic cigarette use with smoking cessation and cigarette consumption in England: a time-series analysis between 2006 and 2017,’ Addiction, 2020, 115: 961– 974.

Key Points:

There is a positive link between the number of people in England giving up smoking and the number of people using e-cigarettes to try and quit.
The study examined the behaviour of more than 50,000 smokers over 10 years (2007-2017).
Key findings:
- The use of e-cigarettes in quit attempts increased from 2011 onwards, so did the success rate of quitting.
- When the increase in the use of e-cigarettes flattened off somewhat around 2015, so did the increase in quit success.
- In 2017 around 50,700 to 69,930 smokers had stopped who would otherwise have continued smoking.
“This study builds on population surveys and clinical trials that find e-cigarettes can help smokers to stop. England seems to have found a sensible balance between regulation and the promotion of e-cigarettes. Marketing is tightly controlled so we are seeing very little use of e-cigarettes by never-smokers of any age while millions of smokers are using them to try to stop smoking or to cut down the amount they smoke.”