Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) is an anti-smoking campaign group who are invested in helping inform the public about the dangers of smoking and the benefits of giving up.
They are one of many health organisations that have shown support for e-cigarettes and the benefits they can have as a safer alternative to smoking. They also recently helped publish a data set on the current trends in regards to smoking and vaping in the UK.
The Findings
The study, which was conducted on behalf of ASH by YouGov, with analysis given by King’s College London, found that there are now approximately 3.2 million e-cigarette users in the UK.
The majority of these users are ex-smokers who have successfully given up with the help of e-cigarettes, a further 40% of vapers are using them in conjunction with traditional cigarettes, with the hope of kicking the habit.
This is fantastic news for us as a nation, as it shows that more and more people are taking their health into their own hands and deciding to make the switch to an option which is less harmful and allow their bodies to heal some of the damage that smoking has caused.
However, there are still an estimated 7.4 million smokers in the UK, and shockingly enough 22% of these smokers still falsely believe that e-cigarettes are as harmful if not more so than smoking.
This is a destructive perception, as it could be preventing many people from choosing e-cigarettes who would otherwise be willing to make the switch, and is a perception that both the vaping industry and a number of health organisations are fighting to correct.
Changing People’s Perceptions
Public Health England, a respected health authority in the UK, has published many studies supporting the use of e-cigarettes as a stop smoking aide, finding them to be ‘95% safer than smoking’. E-cigarettes do not contain any of the harmful carcinogens and toxins that are produced upon combusting tobacco, with nicotine being the only output from an e-cigarette that is proven to be harmful. It has been found that vaping presents a less than 1% chance of causing cancer, which is far less than cigarettes which are renowned for their cancer-causing effects.
This is information which is becoming more and more widely spread with the help of health organisations, stop smoking services and the positive media attention that vaping has recently experienced. But with one third of all smokers having never even tried an e-cigarette, there is still a lot of people who are either unaware of this or unwilling to make the switch.
With the NHS carrying the burden of the diseases and damage caused by smoking, resulting in one in four of all patients admitted to hospital, it is in our best interest to embrace any solution which could help ease this burden and improve the health of our country as a whole.
Fortunately, the research carried out by ASH has found that the number of people adopting vaping as an alternative to smoking is steadily increasing, and the number of people who correctly believe e-cigarettes to be a safer alternative to smoking is also on the rise.
If you are interested in finding out more about e-cigarettes and their uses as a stop smoking aide, head over to our vaping blog to find advice, reviews and vaping news, or pop in to your local Evapo vape store and speak to an expert Evapo colleague.
