New research in England estimates that vaping has helped around 50,000 to 70,000 smokers to quit smoking in 2017. But different cultures and policies around electronic cigarettes mean that those results may not be replicated in other countries.
E-cigarettes as an effective cessation tool
The study that was published found that the success rate of those who were able to quit smoking rose as the use of e-cigarettes increased from 2011 till present. That rate began to decrease so much in 2015 when the use of e-cigarettes in England started to fall.
Around 50,498 smokers were interviewed during the research, and with the help of monthly surveys and data from the Smoking Toolkit Study, it estimated that in 2017, 50,700 to 69,930 smokers were able to stop smoking. These smokers are the ones who otherwise would have continued without e-cigarettes to help as a cessation tool.
Jamie Brown, an author of the study and a research fellow at University College London, said that the findings should be reassuring and that it shows that e-cigarettes really do help smokers quit. He said that it was plausible to assume that e-cigarettes would help similar numbers of people to quit cigarette smoking every year if e-cigarette use remained at the same level as 2017.
The result of this new study may not be applicable to other countries. The reasons why it worked for England is because they have a strong tobacco control climate, and they generally have high motivation to quit among smokers and a relatively liberal regulatory framework for e-cigarettes.
The UK government promotes vaping as a way to quit cigarette smoking, while American has been more cautious about e-cigarettes, due to the epidemic of vaping among young people, with users as young as 14 years old. Another reason is due to the recent outbreak of vaping-related lung injuries across numerous states.
Another research regarding e-cigarettes that was published this year was focused on French smokers, and it drew a similar conclusion, but it said that e-cigarettes increased the risk of relapse in some former smokers.
In 2017, a study was published that was based on US population surveys. It said that a substantial increase in e-cigarette use among American adult smokers was linked with a statistically significant increase in the smoking cessation rate.
Effects of e-cigarettes on health in America
A 2018 report in the public health consequences of e-cigarettes by the US National Academies of Sciences Engineering Medicine stated that e-cigarettes might increase the adult cessation of traditional tobacco cigarettes, but at the same time, it warned that young people who were vaping are more likely switch to traditional cigarettes.
There has been a major backlash against vaping in America when an epidemic broke out, and it involved teen vaping, and vaping-related illnesses have spread that sickened more than 1,200 people and killed more than 30 people. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that the majority of the lung injury cases were linked to products that contained THC, which is the main psychoactive compound in cannabis, but the exact cause is still unknown.