Vaping May Be Slowing Down But Number of Smokers Falling

England could be completely smoke-free by 2051 thanks in part to e-cigarettes, according to a new study.

And with the number of smokers continuing to fall, the UK government could reach its target of 5% smokers in the population as early as 2040.

However, the study was funded by Big Tobacco giant Phillip Morris Inc, which continues to ply its heat-not-burn tobacco-based products as a safer alternative to regular cigarettes.

It could be a genuine concern for the damage the tobacco industry has done to the health of the world’s smokers over the decades that PMI is at the forefront of this kind of research – or it could be clever PR and marketing.

I’m more on the side of “clever PR”, but hey, I’ll keep an open mind – but given that far less is known about the safety of heat-not-burn products compared to e-cigarettes – I still view anything coming from Big Tobacco with a large dose of skepticism.

In fact, my skepticism is in line with many other organizations and those far more knowledgeable about such matters than I am.

Heat Not Burn Devices

These types of devices have been around since 1988 – the first being R.J. Reynolds’ Premier, but Phillip Morris’ IQOS, which was launched in 2014, are the most well-known.

There haven’t been many studies done on the safety of these devices – the most recent being by – yes, you guessed it – Phillip Morris’ own scientists.

So hopefully you can see why many of us are skeptical of heat-not-burn products and the spin used by Big Tobacco companies like PMI, which literally points to getting out of the smoking/tobacco industry worth untold billions.

Smoking Rates Fall as New E-Cig User Numbers Tumble

OK the study does bring up a few interesting points including as we know smoking rates have been in decline for many years however since 2012 the numbers have declined at twice the rate.

The study found this fall will not continue as quickly given they say the numbers of folks moving to e-cigarettes and vaping is drastically slowing down.

A study by ASH [Action on Smoking and Health] found there was only 100,000 new vapers in 2017, compared with 800,000 in 2014.

Now, as I’ve said many times in the past, much of this is down to the extremely negative media portrayal of vaping and e-cigarettes, as well as heavily promoted fake science [backed by Big Tobacco perhaps?] and indeed the early reluctance of some health organizations to support the benefits of e-cigarettes.

While the likes of ASH are now a little more supportive – their earlier anti-e-cig stance certainly helped feed the negativity and has resulted in 13% of the population [wrongly] believing that e-cigs are more harmful than regular cigarettes in 2017, up from 5% in 2012.

I find that a staggering number, but it’s something I see and hear whenever the subject of me being a vaper comes up.

It’s thanks to the constant scare stories in the media, largely unchecked by the ‘experts’, that has led to this ‘urban myth’.

This is an issue that was raised again in the recent Vape Debate and I for one hope that MPs will not only start to hold the media to account for their shameful fake news vaping stories – but also start to redress the balance with a more positive spin on e-cigs.

Useful Findings

Anyway back to the report findings lol…

On the subject of e-cigarettes and vaping researchers found that :

• 97% of e-cigarette users (‘vapers’) in Great Britain are former or current smokers.
• Only 3% of e-cigarette users in GB have never smoked.
• While the number of new e-cigarette users in GB has been slowing, a higher proportion of e-cigarette users have converted to sole use.
• In 2017, for the first time, the majority of current e-cigarette users in GB are ex-smokers (52%). Over 1.5 million current e-cigarette users in GB have stopped smoking entirely.
• If all 1.5 million GB e-cigarette users were still smoking instead, prevalence would be 3.4 percentage points higher. However we recognise that some of these smokers would have attempted to quit in any case, albeit with less success than using e-cigarettes.
• The Department of Health (2017) estimated that in 2016 2 million consumers in England had used e-cigarettes at some point to stop smoking completely.

The study also re-iterates the key points of vaping being considerably less harmful than smoking – please use these bullet points to counter any arguments to the contrary you may be faced with ?