David Waterfield is the Area Director, British American Tobacco, North-Western Europe Area.
Three million people.
We’ve heard lots of big numbers in the past week, but it’s this number – three million people – that stands out most for me.
And it’s very good news for Britain. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) revealed on Thursday that there are now more than three million vapers in England.
That’s more than three million people who have switched or are switching away from cigarettes.
Nearly all of these are current or former smokers (fewer than one per cent of English vapers took up vaping without having first smoked).
OHID refer to Smoking Toolkit Study data that shows, “among adult smokers, vaping products have remained the most common aid used in a quit attempt since 2013”, with more smokers turning to them than any other alternative to cigarettes.
Most importantly, the report also confirmed what English public health officials have been saying for years: vaping poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking.
In the past, alternative nicotine products – think gums and patches – did not sufficiently meet the preferences of smokers. Presented with only these medicalised alternatives to smoking, many smokers struggled to quit.
Vaping has opened a world of choice to smokers. And it turns out that, when you give people real choice, many choose to switch.
Health officials have embraced vaping as a means to help people quit, and the numbers speak for themselves.
For the first time this century, fewer than one in seven English adults smoke. That’s a number that puts the rest of Europe to shame. Of the 27 EU members, only Sweden has fared better.
However, last Thursday’s OHID report also found that almost two thirds of all remaining smokers still believe that vaping is as harmful as smoking.
That means that around six million smokers in England don’t know or understand that better alternatives, and real choices, are available to them.
If England is to meet its ambitious smoke-free target, much more work must be done to quicken the pace of people switching from cigarettes to vaping.
At BAT, we are committed to building A Better Tomorrow™, one where smokers who would otherwise continue to smoke switch to less risky alternatives*, such as vaping.
We hope over the coming years that our alternative nicotine products will continue to help many more adult smokers to make the switch.
* Based on the weight of evidence and assuming a complete switch from cigarette smoking. These products are not risk free and are addictive.