The vaping industry has long touted the benefits it brings to society as a safer alternative to cigarettes, but a new Lancet article proves that the jury is still out on these claims.
Central to the debate is whether vaping primarily succeeds in weening smokers off more harmful tobacco products, or whether it primarily succeeds in creating new nicotine consumers from previously non-smoking consumers.
London-listed Elfbar and Lost Mary distributor Supreme plc, for instance, cites its core objective as “helping adult smokers find an affordable, sustainable, and safer alternative to smoking”.
Vaping has undoubtedly helped millions to ditch the darts, but as The Lancet’s study suggests, “it is likely that more people will start vaping without ever smoking”.
The Lancet’s population-based study showed that the number of adults in England who vape but have never regularly smoked rose rapidly between 2021 and 2024, particularly in the 18-24 age group.
“As of April 2024, extrapolating our survey results to country level, we estimate around 1 million adult vapers in England who had never regularly smoked,” it said.
Disposable vapes, which entered the UK market in 2021, were cited as the leading cause of this statistic.
The UK government has moved to ban disposable vapes, a policy supported by industry players including Supreme.
Of those polled by the Lancet, 81.7% of 'never-smokers' who vaped had been doing so for over six months.
The Lancet agreed that “if these individuals would otherwise have smoked, vaping will have a harm reduction effect by diverting them towards a less harmful nicotine product”, but “if these people would not have otherwise taken up smoking, then starting to vape regularly will expose them to more harm than if they had neither smoked nor vaped”.
The study did not assess the degree to which previous non-smokers take up smoking after prolonged vape use. This is also a matter of dispute.
A study conducted by the Australian government suggested that “a number of scientific reports and studies have reported an association between e-cigarette use in never smokers and uptake of tobacco cigarette smoking in the future”.
However, subsequent studies have contested these claims.
Proactive has reached out to Supreme for a viewpoint on The Lancet's article.