About 1 million vapers in England have no history of regular smoking, reports Bloomberg, citing a new University College London (UCL) study.
From 2016 to 2020, the country’s rate of vaping among adults without a smoking history remained stable and low at 0.5 percent, according to the paper, which was published in The Lancet Public Health this week.
When disposable vapes became popular after 2021, the share of vapers without a smoking history increased rapidly, with the rate reaching one in every 28 as of April this year.
One in seven people aged 18 to 24 who never regularly smoked are now using e-cigarettes, the study found. There has also been a noticeable increase in the proportion using disposable devices.
“These findings are a reminder that action is required to try to minimize vaping among young people,” Jamie Brown, the study’s co-author and professor at the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. “Banning disposables, as the U.K. government currently plans, is unlikely to fix the issue as popular brands have already launched reusable products with very similar designs and prices.”