The U.S. Acknowledges That Vaping Is Indeed One Factor Behind Declining Smoking Rates

In recent years, there has been ongoing debate over whether e-cigarettes can help people switch away from smoking or quit altogether. The biggest issue is that, aside from the UK, few countries have produced solid data showing that e-cigarettes can reduce smoking rates. However, the country with perhaps the most controversy surrounding vaping—the United States—has recently had to acknowledge this indirectly.

According to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the smoking rate among American adults has fallen to a historic low. In 2017, the adult smoking rate in the United States was just 14%. For comparison, in 1965 the U.S. had a smoking rate as high as 42%, meaning nearly half the population smoked—hard to imagine today. Perhaps because vaping is currently subject to strict regulation in the U.S., the CDC did not credit Vape as a major contributor to smoking cessation when releasing the data. Instead, it mainly attributed the decline in smoking rates to “anti-tobacco education.” Even so, smoking cessation and Vape remain topics the CDC cannot avoid, while the effectiveness of education as a psychological intervention is actually harder to verify with data.

The CDC also inevitably expressed its view on Vape, roughly as follows: The CDC did not deny that e-cigarettes have helped many people move away from traditional cigarettes and contributed to lower smoking rates. However, since Vape is still often described as a tobacco product, they also question whether this should truly count as “quitting smoking” in the strict sense. Ironically, current statistics do not classify Vapor users as smokers, which in some sense amounts to recognizing this “smoking cessation effect.” As for Vape, the CDC believes more research is still needed to prove its effectiveness.

In fact, about five months earlier, the CDC had already clearly stated that Vape is indeed one of the factors contributing to the decline in smoking rates. Perhaps changes in the current climate have made the CDC’s public stance on Vape more ambiguous. Around the world, various health and safety organizations are also paying increasing attention to Vape. According to commentary from the Consumer Choice Center, Vape may become a new indicator for smoking cessation and harm reduction.