ASH Adult Data Released

The highlight of the annual survey is the important role flavours played in delivering success.

Action on Smoking and Health says: “Among all those who stopped smoking in the last 5 years just over half report they used a vape to quit equating to 2.7 million people. Of those a third have also stopped vaping and the average duration of their vaping was a year.

“There is now well established evidence that vaping is an effective aid to quitting smoking and less harmful than smoking but this new data shows the scale of quitting linked to smoking in recent years.”

ASH says it is calling for a new Tobacco and Vapes Bill to be reintroduced urgently in order to address the levels of teenage vaping. We highlighted last week that ASH’s own data shows a drop in never-smoking teens trying vaping of over 17%. ASH’s call for urgent action is not supported by its own data.

ASH does add that it hopes policy makers don’t implement regulations that go on to undermine the value of vapes as an aid for those smoking. Quite how it does that after ASH has whipped up a fear of vape flavours has not been explained.

The charity warns that the survey has thrown up evidence emphasising high levels of public misperceptions about vaping with half of adults believing that vaping is as or more harmful than smoking when it is in fact much less harmful.

ASH does not claim any responsibility for this despite pushing for a restriction on packaging designs, hiding vapes away in stores and restricting flavours to just four types.

Hazel Cheeseman, Deputy Chief Executive (and soon to be Chief Executive) of ASH said: “Millions of people have used vapes to successfully stop smoking in recent years, increasing healthy life expectancy and improving the nation’s productivity. Tougher vape regulations are urgently needed, but it is important they are calibrated to address youth vaping while not deterring use of vapes as quitting aids. Smoking is still the country’s biggest preventable killer and vaping is one of many tools needed to help smokers quit if we are to create a smokefree country for current as well as future generations. Government must also communicate more effectively that vaping is less harmful than smoking but not risk free, and should only be used as an aid to quitting.”

“In the last few years almost all the patients I see who manage to quit smoking do so through vaping and without it I fear many of them would not have. Vapes are already being used by stop smoking services and NHS support for smokers but they could be used more widely in our efforts to help the millions still smoking quit” - Professor Sanjay Agrawal, Royal College of Physicians special advisor on tobacco and a consultant in respiratory and critical care medicine at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust

Dr Ruth Sharrock, a Consultant Respiratory Physician and Clinical Lead for Tobacco for Lung Cancer and Health Inequalities, added: “In the North East of England we have been able to use vapes as an invaluable part of the strategy to help smokers to quit smoking. They are the most common quit aid chosen by both hospital patients and staff members who are dependent on tobacco. Transitioning to a vastly safer form of nicotine, without the thousands of chemicals in burned tobacco, feels like a really positive step for them. One patient described their Swap to Stop vape as a being 'like a free upgrade' rather than the 'punishment' of asking them to try to quit smoking. I hope better awareness of the benefits they can bring to people who currently smoke, enables many more people to try them.”

Kerry Apedaile, a Specialist Tobacco Dependence Service Lead at Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust continued the positive vibes about vaping: “We find that vapes are a really important tool to help us support people who are admitted to our hospitals, where they cannot smoke.

“Many of our patients don’t want to use nicotine replacement therapy like patches, gum, or inhalators, but are much more open to using a vape to temporarily stop smoking during their hospital stay. Vapes help people to feel more in control of their nicotine withdrawal. The fact that a vape occupies your hands also allows people to continue the hand to mouth habitual behaviour they had with smoking, but without most of the toxic chemicals. We do risk assess all patients before offering vapes as a nicotine replacement option.

“Patients with serious mental health conditions are often the forgotten group when it comes to helping people quit smoking. Even though the number of smokers in the general population has fallen significantly, smoking levels among people with serious mental health problems have remained relatively steady.

“Vaping offers a much better chance for our patients to finally quit smoking successfully, so it’s important that vapes are accessible to patients within mental health settings. I’ve seen firsthand the difference it can make, helping people who have smoked for decades to quit.”

Prior to publication, the new data was analysed and peer reviewed by experts from King’s College London and University College London. 

Commenting on the data, Professor Leonie Brose added: “We urgently need to tackle the increase in dangerous misperceptions. More than half of people who smoke long-term will die prematurely due to smoking. Alarmingly, half of those who smoke think vaping is just as harmful or more harmful and almost as many are unaware that nicotine-containing medication is less harmful than smoking. These misperceptions are costing lives and we need continued focus on reducing the harms from smoking.”

And Professor Lion Shahab continued: “The latest ASH results underline the important role e-cigarettes play in helping smokers stop, being used in half of successful quit attempts. Given increasing long-term use of e-cigarettes among ex-smokers, they also likely help maintain abstinence, while co-use with cigarettes may encourage further quit attempts among smokers. Overall, this use pattern provides a clear indication that e-cigarettes contribute to the eradication of combustible cigarettes in Great Britain, and public health policy should be aligned with this outcome.”

References:

• Use of vapes (e-cigarettes) among adults in Great Britain - https://ash.org.uk/uploads/Use-of-vapes-among-adults-in-Great-Britain-2024.pdf

Photo Credit:

• Photo by Ernst-Günther Krause (NID) on Unsplash

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

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Dave 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.