Three million Britons have quit smoking with the help of e-cigarettes in the last five years. This is according to Action on Smoking and Health's latest report on vejpning and the use of e-cigarettes in the UK.
Action on Smoking and Health has been collecting data on vejping regularly since 2010 and summarizes the results annually in a report. This year's statistics are based on data from 13266 Britons who took part in the survey in 2023 and 2024.
Few non-smokers start vejpa
According to the report, the proportion of vejp users is higher than ever before in the UK. A total of 11%, or 5.6 million people, use e-cigarettes regularly and of these, just over half, 53%, have completely stopped smoking cigarettes. 8% of vejps reported that they are former non-smokers.
"The report shows that vejping among adults has increased over the past year and that the main reasons were to quit, reduce or to abstain from smoking. Quitting smoking is the best thing a person who smokes can do for their health and the latest ASH report shows the role e-cigarettes can play in this journey." says the addiction researcher Katherine East, at King's College London, who reviewed the report.
Want to reduce smoking with vapes
According to the target set by the previous UK government, smoking in the UK should be below 5% by 2030. Hazel Cheeseman is Deputy Chief Executive of ASH UK. And she believes that e-cigarettes are necessary to achieve that goal. Currently, almost 12% of the population smokes, a figure that is certainly falling, but not fast enough, she says
One of the problems is that almost half of all smokers believe that smoking is as or even more dangerous than smoking. The government needs to do a better job of informing citizens, especially smokers, says Hazel Cheeseman
"The government needs to reinforce the message that vejping is less harmful than smoking. At the same time, it needs to emphasize that it is not risk-free and should only be used as a smoking cessation aid." says Hazel Cheeseman.
