Smoking Drops 40 Percent In Iceland As Popularity of Vaping Rises

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Over the last three years, Iceland has seen a dramatic reduction in smoking rates; at least one Icelandic doctor is praising vaping for contributing to that decline. This is good news for vaping and showcases how a country can take their health into their own hands by putting down the combustible cigarettes and picking up an e-cigarette.

With more evidence coming out seemingly every day touting the positive impact that vaping has for ex-smokers, we're building definitive proof that vaping reduces harms associated with smoking, and that smokers are more inclined to quit once they pick up the vape.  

Iceland Puts Down Cigarettes

According to Icelandic website Visir, the small country has seen a 40 percent drop in smoking in just the last three years. In 2014, the country reported that 14 percent of the population smoked but as of 2017 that number had dropped to 9 percent. Overall, the number of Icelandic smokers declined from 35,000 to 22,000.

That means that an astounding 13,000 people have quit in a period of three years. That may not seem like a lot to an American where we measure populations in millions, but for Iceland, it’s a substantial amount. Iceland’s last estimated population was about 330,000 people in 2016.

“Smoking has been falling like a rock like we’ve never seen before,” doctor Guðmundur Karl Snæbjörnsson told reporters. “The biggest contributing factors have been mouth tobacco and vaping, which have clearly been wiping smoking out.”

Vaping has been on the rise in the small country and has almost overtaken smoking with respect to popularity. Iceland estimates that about 20,000 people vape on a daily basis.  

A Chance For Progress

These developments represent a chance for Iceland to take similar steps as the United Kingdom and New Zealand, looking at the numbers and the progress that they’ve made toward eliminating the problems associated with combustible cigarettes.

Further improvements could include a number of steps from the Icelandic government going forward. The U.K. and New Zealand, for example, have launched smoke-free initiatives and encouraged vaping as a government-approved cessation tool for reducing disease occurrences associated with smoking.

Looking at the raw data, however, it’s hard not to see a potential solution to accelerate the momentum that springs from thousands of people quitting cigarettes in just three years. One of the first steps could be a government sanctioned approval of vaping as a cessation tool.

Iceland is a different, and much smaller country than the United States, but the lessons from the last three years are still significant: more vaping leads to more fewer cigarettes, fewer cigarettes leads to less cigarette-related diseases.