Report Shows Vaping Preferred Method For Smoking Cessation

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Quitting smoking is difficult, and anyone who has tried knows that it’s a process of trying to figure out what works for you. Over the years, the U.S. Centers For Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention have called into question which method of cessation is the most effective in reducing the cause of illness and diseases associated with tobacco use.

In its latest report, the CDC has reluctantly conceded a point that we in the vapor industry have argued for a long time: vaping is a more popular and effective tobacco harm reduction tool than any other nicotine replacement therapy - that's including nicotine patches, nicotine gum, and pharmaceutical drugs like Chantix, Zyban, or Wellbutrin.

The CDC has been, to this point, notoriously reluctant to say anything positive about vaping. However, their latest findings show that the agency might be on the wrong side of history when it comes to vaping as a cessation tool.

Overview

The report is entitled “Quit Methods Used by US Adult Cigarette Smokers, 2014–2016.” The stated purpose of the study was to evaluate ten different smoking cessation methods to determine which were the most effective. The study consisted of an online survey of 15,943 current smokers trying to quit; the published findings include the following statistics:

74.7% of respondents claim to have tried multiple nicotine replacement therapies (NRTs) simultaneously during their last attempt to quit smoking.
65.3% tried the cold-turkey method
62.0% focused on reducing cigarette intake rather than quitting.
35.3% attempted to reduce their smoking intake by substituting vaping to a limited degree.
24.7% claimed to have quit smoking completely via a transition to vaping.
25.4% claimed to have tried one or more of the FDA-approved NRTs (nicotine patches, gums and lozenges) with varying degrees of success.
15.2% admitted to having solicited the help of a medical profession in their efforts to quit or reduce smoking.
12.2% admitted to trying FDA-approved medication as prescribed by a physician.
7.1% used “stop smoking” websites and online information to help curb their smoking addiction.
5.4% used telephone “stop smoking” services.

Results

According to these results, the amount of smokers who relied on vaping to stop or reduce their daily cigarette use is a combined 60 percent, far outpacing nicotine patches and gum substitution methods by 35 percent, and outdoing a combined medical profession and FDA-approved medication by about 30 percent.

 

“There is no conclusive scientific evidence that e-cigarettes are effective for long-term cessation of cigarette smoking. E-cigarettes are not approved by the FDA as a smoking cessation aid. FDA-approved medications have helped smokers to quit, in many instances doubling the likelihood of success. Finally, we found that most smokers who are switching to e-cigarettes or ‘mild’ cigarettes are not switching completely. These smokers are not stopping their cigarette smoking.”

Still, the numbers, in this case, speak for themselves.