E-cigarette use link to smoking cessation

New survey data from England show rising e-cigarette use has been accompanied by a notable increase in smoking cessation, according to a story by Jacob Sullum for Reason Magazine.

Sullum quotes Boston University public health professor Michael Siegel as having highlighted the Smoking Toolkit Study, which had shown that e-cigarette use in England had been increasing since 2011, when the survey began.

The study had shown also that the percentage of smokers who had reported quitting in the previous year had risen from 4.6 percent in 2011 to 6.2 percent in 2012.

The cessation rate was 6.1 percent last year and 8.7 percent in the first quarter of this year.

During the same period the success rate of smokers who tried to quit rose from 13.7 percent to 21.4 percent.

These trends, Siegel was quoted as saying, suggested that “electronic cigarettes are helping to accelerate smoking cessation, rather than hinder it.”

The researchers concluded that the “evidence does not support the view that electronic cigarettes are undermining motivation to quit or reduction in smoking prevalence.”

They noted also that “use of e-cigarettes by never smokers remains extremely rare,” which deflated the fear that e-cigarettes were a gateway to smoking.

Siegel is a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health.

His blog is at http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/.