Most Vapers are Ex-Smokers
Most Vapers are Ex-Smokers: A survey supports Professor West’s findings that the majority of vapers are ex-smokers
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by Dave Cross
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In the intervening couple of years we have seen a number of papers released on the subject of who vapes and what they did before vaping. The Planet of the Vapes forum has boomed during the same period of time and, almost to a person, were all ex-smokers.
Robert West, commenting on the STS study findings in the video below, spoke out in favour of the efficacy of vaping as a quit approach. He repeated his previous findings that the people who vape are ex-smokers. And he welcomed the prospect of new research. At the launch of the Smoking England study in January, he said: “E-cigarette users are smokers looking to cut down or ex-smokers using them to quit. Some are concerned that they attract non-smokers but the evidence clearly demonstrates that only 0.2% are never-smokers.”
Although the survey released this week is not the most exacting, it’s findings run concurrent with what we already know. Volunteers of the non-governmental organisation "New Technologies for Health" (NTH) asked a series of questions to attendees at last week’s international VAPEXPO exhibition, in Kiev.
Eighty-two percent of those who responded stated that they used to smoke prior to adopting electronic cigarettes. The reasons given for making the switch included: encouragement from family and friends (44.3%), a desire to improve personal health (27.6%), because it seemed popular and that made them want to try (10.4%) and information they had read on and offline (13%).
The response to what strength of liquid they use is probably indicative of the sort of vaper attending VAPEXPO: 64% of those replying vaped 3mg strength juices while 28% use no nicotine at all. Only 8% of attendees admitted to still smoking cigarettes – this lies in contrast with the two-thirds of British vapers who currently dual-fuel.
"Electronic nicotine delivery systems are new phenomenon, which is extended excessively fast among audience of smokers,” NTH’s chairman Dmytro Rafael is quoted as saying. “The appeal to smokers and the international experience show their potential for total displacement of smoking conventional cigarettes. However, there are still key questions whether this scenario allows to carry out tobacco harm reduction, whether this trend is positive phenomenon, or society just changes one problem to another. To answer that questions scientific researches are needed.”
So, although this study is not earth shattering, it is yet more evidence that ex-smokers successfully quit traditional tobacco thanks to the new electronic development.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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