Study Says E-Cigarettes Helped About 6.1 Million Smokers Quit

According to a paper published this week in the journal Addiction, an estimated 6.1 million Europeans have used e-cigarettes to quit smoking.

Although this is only an estimate, the study highlights that more data is still needed to support just how useful e-cigarettes may be as a smoking cessation aid. This is especially important as new e-cigarette regulations are being introduced across the EU and the U.S., with some saying the new rules could threaten the entire vaping industry.

In the article, researchers closely analyzed data collected in 2014 as well as figures released by the European Commission last year. The survey found that only 2% of respondents were current e-cigarette users, while 14% reported that they had completely quit smoking by switching to e-cigarettes. However, this included all smokers who had only briefly tried e-cigarettes, not just those who made a serious and sustained effort to quit. By digging deeper into the data, the researchers found even more surprising success rates.

Among respondents who were current e-cigarette users, 35% were former smokers who had already successfully quit. In addition, the outcome was linked to frequency of use: among daily e-cigarette users, 30.6% had quit smoking, while among those who used e-cigarettes once a week or less, the figure was 8.9%.

The researchers then extrapolated these findings to the total EU population, estimating that 6.1 million people had already quit smoking through e-cigarettes, while another 9.2 million had become dual users in order to reduce smoking.

Of course, millions of Europeans have also tried and failed to quit smoking with e-cigarettes, but that is true of all smoking cessation tools. For example, the most effective prescription medications for quitting smoking have a success rate of about 23%, while nicotine patches and gum are only around 6% effective.

Unfortunately for vaping advocates, this type of analysis has its limitations. These 6 million people are an extrapolated estimate. The survey included interviews with only 27,801 people, and because it was interview-based, all of the information was self-reported. As the study authors pointed out, “Although surveys and user studies indicate that many smokers have successfully quit by using e-cigarettes, randomized controlled trials have shown only a modest effect, and the effectiveness of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation remains in question.”

There is still no indisputable evidence proving the remarkable effectiveness of e-cigarettes for quitting smoking, but the authors believe these indicators show that further research is needed, and perhaps they need to be used in ways different from the past.