General Article E-cigarettes are a gateway to real cigarettes for Britain’s young

Topic Selected: Smoking and Health
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Mark Conner, University of Leeds

Young people in Britain who use e-cigarettes (vape) are nearly four times more likely to start smoking cigarettes than their non-vaping peers, our latest study has found.

When e-cigarettes first entered the market a decade ago, they were considered to be as dangerous as cigarettes. But views have changed since then, and e-cigarettes are now widely believed to be a far safer option than smoking.

In 2015, Public Health England published a detailed review of the evidence around the safety of e-cigarettes and said, at best guess, they were 95% less toxic than conventional cigarettes.

But concerns remain because e-cigarettes usually contain the addictive ingredient of cigarettes: nicotine. While recognising the harm reduction impact of e-cigarettes, it is important to ask what role, if any, e-cigarettes play in encouraging non-smoking adolescents to try their first cigarette.

For a number of years, my colleagues and I have been tr...

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