Vapes

Vapes as NRT

Vaping helps with many of a smoker’s habits, behaviours, and sensations. This includes the hand-to-mouth action, that can be replicated with vaping and can help smokers to keep their hands busy. Vaping delivers the sensation of inhaling, delivering nicotine and a vapour like that of smoking. Vaping delivers nicotine to help with cravings and withdrawal symptoms, although like NRT this delivery system is slower than that of smoking tobacco. Unlike other NRT, vapes are not commonly given as a prescription, however, Stop for Life Oxon, can provide up to 12 weeks of vaping kit to those clients who are eligible* and wishing to use a vape to Quit. The Vape Starter kit will include everything that you need to get you going on your quit attempt, with a refill offered every 4 weeks up to 12 weeks.

How safe are Vapes?

Vapes are far less harmful than smoked tobacco. Latest evidence shows that although not risk free, vapes are far less harmful than that of tobacco smoking. This was supported by a 2020 report by the Committee on Toxicity of Chemical in Food, Consumer Products, and the Environment (COT) reviewing evidence on vapes to date, and concluded that they are not risk free, but are significantly less harmful than tobacco smoking, this was later collaborated by the US National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine via lab tests.  The Royal College of Physicians report on tobacco harm reduction concluded that “the magnitude of this risk is likely to be very small in relation to that from tobacco smoke, and the hazard to health arising from long term vapour inhalation from the vapes available today is unlikely to exceed 5% of the harm from smoking tobacco.” Read our handy vape fact guide here.

Myths 

“VAPES ARE AS HARMFUL AS SMOKING”  

There are many studies disproving this claim. In the first long-term health study of a group of vapers that had never smoked, conducted over a period of three and a half years, Professor Riccardo Polosa of the University of Catania and his research group concluded in 2017 that rather than just being far safer than smoking, long-term vapers who had never smoked were identical in respiratory health to those who neither smoked nor vaped. Public Health England and the Royal College of Physicians state that vapes are at least 95% less harmful than tobacco 

“SECOND-HAND VAPOUR IS HARMFUL”  

We know that second hand smoking is harmful, this is often incorrectly applied to vaping as well. Surprisingly, Lorillard Tobacco Company published a study to reveal that passive vaping isn’t harmful. The 2014 study compared the levels of carcinogens in second-hand vape to second-hand smoke. It concluded that second-hand vapour contains the same level of carcinogens as the ambient air that everyone breathes. 

"VAPES ARE NOT AN EFFECTIVE QUIT SMOKING TOOL"  

At the beginning of 2019 a research team, led by Professor Peter Hajek of Queen Mary University of London, published the results of a randomized trial in the New England Journal of Medicine. The results showed not just that vapes were helpful in quit attempts, but that they were almost twice as effective as the 'gold standard' combination of nicotine replacement products they were compared with. Vapes are now a primary suggested cessation aid in NICE Guidelines.  

“VAPING IS MORE ADDICTIVE THAN SMOKING”  

There is evidence to suggest that vapes are far less addictive than regular cigarettes. One study by Jean François Etter in 2015 suggests vapes are similarly or less addictive than nicotine gum, both being far less addictive than traditional cigarettes.