Vaping fears are stopping smokers from quitting, campaigners warn

FEARS around vaping are stopping smokers from quitting, campaigners warn.

Four in 10 now believe e-cigarettes are as harmful or worse than traditional tobacco, according to Action on Smoking and Health.

The figure was up from a third last year, with the charity claiming safety concerns about vapes could hamper the Government’s “Swap to Stop” scheme.

The policy, announced earlier this year, saw around 1million smokers given a free vaping starter kit together with behavioural support to help them quit smoking.

Hazel Cheeseman, Deputy Chief Executive of ASH said: “The Government has backed a vaping strategy as its path to reduce rates of smoking.

“But this approach will be undermined if smokers don’t try vapes due to safety fears or stop vaping too soon and revert to smoking.

“The Government must act quickly to improve public understanding that vaping poses a fraction of the risk of smoking.”

Around 6.6million Brits were smokers in 2021, according to latest data from the Office for National Statistics.

The habit kills around 76,000 every year in the country, with many more living with debilitating smoking-related illnesses.

Vaping has been shown to be significantly less dangerous than smoking in the short-term and the NHS recommends using them to quit tobacco.

However, concerns have been raised about rising use in teenagers who have never smoked.

While e-cigarettes are the safer option for smokers they are not entirely risk-free, so it is not advised that non-smokers start vaping.

Rishi Sunak announced a clampdown on vape use in children at the end of May, closing a loophole allowing free samples to be given out to teens in shops.

ASH polled 12,000 adults across England, Scotland and Wales to see how people’s opinions of vaping affected their smoking habits.

Of the 1.3million smokers who have never tried vaping, 43 per cent believe it is more harmful or worse than smoking, up from 27 per cent in 2019.

Some 44 per cent of the 2.9million that tried vaping but stopped said they thought it was as dangerous or more, up from a quarter in 2019.

Professor Ann McNeill, of King’s College London, said: “Anxiety over youth vaping is obscuring the fact that switching from smoking will be much better for an individual’s health.

“We must not be complacent about youth vaping and further regulation is needed, but so too is work to ensure more adults stop smoking and vaping is an effective means of doing that.”