Vape Green Surveys Vapers
Vape retailer Vape Green has asked vapers about their habits and how they feel about the UK government restricting vaping – the results are in!
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by Dave Cross
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Vape Green says: “We ran a survey asking our customers about their vaping experience and previous smoking habits, including which devices and nicotine strengths they use and what helped them quit smoking. And for those who vape but still smoke, we investigated how vaping affects their smoking habits.”
The company adds: “With the current open consultation on proposed legislation changes surrounding vaping, we ran a survey asking our customers to comment on a range of vaping issues, from changes they’d support to the broader question of what they would do if the UK government restricted their access to vaping.”
Key findings
- 88.4% of those surveyed successfully quit smoking thanks to vaping
- Refillable pod kits were the most effective device in helping smokers quit
- Nicotine-free (0mg) vapes were reported the least effective in smoking cessation
- Among those who haven’t successfully quit smoking, 100% reported that vaping helps them smoke less
- The most commonly reported reasons for vaping were to quit smoking for health reasons (82.2%) and to save money (46.5%)
In total, 129 vapers responded to the Vape Green UK Vapers Survey. Over 79% of them were over 35 years old and 88.4% said that they had successfully quit smoking.
One of the reasons it is believed that vaping works better than any other smoking cessation alternative is that people tend to vape for longer than they would use NRT. This was born out by Vape Green’s results as 81.4% reported that they had been vaping for more than a year.
Over 80% said they had taken up vaping in order to quit smoking/for health reasons. The next most popular reasons were to save money (46.5%), and “to quit smoking for my family” (31.8%).
Friend or family recommendation was the reason 12.4% of respondents gave it a go, and 18.6% just wanted to try an electronic cigarette to see how they got on.
Ranking poorly, just three of those taking part in the survey said they had switched to vaping due to encouragement from their GP or Local Stop Smoking Service.
Prior to vaping, 35.1% had been smokers for over 20 years, and 11.4% had been smokers for less than 5 years.
Vape Green says: “Of these vapers, we found that a majority smoked over half a pack of cigarettes a day, with 50.9% reporting that they smoked between 11 and 20 cigarettes per day and 18.4% reporting that they smoked over 20 cigarettes per day. Only 7% of those surveyed reported that they had only smoked socially or occasionally before taking up vaping.”
Refillable pod kits were the most popular devices (52.6%) followed by mod and tank set-ups (27.2%), and disposable vapes bringing up the rear (20.2%).
When it comes to the state of vaping legislation and vapers’ opinions on current threats from the UK government, the survey produced some interesting responses.
To the question: “If the UK government banned vaping or significantly restricted your access to vape products, what would you do?”
- 38.8% of UK vapers said they would go back to smoking
- 34.9% said they would buy illicit products
- 26.4% said they would quit vaping
Finding out which vaping regulations, initiatives, and legislation vapers would support:
- Harsher fines for selling vapes to under-18s - 82.2% support
- Public recycling bins in city centres for disposable vapes - 58.9% support
- A higher tax on nicotine products - 3.1% support
- A ban on all flavours except tobacco - 2.3% support
Finally, when it comes to disposables, Vape Green found that only 7.8% strongly supported the proposed measure to ban single-use vape devices.
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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