Vaping Gateway to Smoking Myth Debunked by Scientists

A new study concludes that 18 to 24 year old’s that use e-cigarettes did not use vaping as a gateway to smoking combustible cigarettes.

The report, published in the journal Addiction, examined e-cigarette use in England among young adults between 2007 and 2018, according to the Belfast Telegraph.

In the study, a team from University College London reviewed data for England from the Smoking Toolkit Study.

Lead author, Emma Beard, said the “findings suggest that the large gateway effects reported in previous studies can be ruled out, particularly among those aged 18 to 24.

“However, we cannot rule out a smaller gateway effect and we did not study younger age groups.” she said.

“If the upper estimates are true, we would estimate that of the 74,000 e-cigarette users aged 16 to 17 in England, around 7,000 would become ever regular smokers as a consequence of e-cigarette use.

“At the same time, approximately 50,000 smokers are estimated to quit per year as a consequence of e-cigarette use.”