Vaping has reached a record level in Great Britain, with an estimated 4.3 million people being active vapers, reports The Guardian.

A report shows that 8.3 per cent of adults in England, Wales and Scotland vape. Just 10 years ago, that number was 1.7 per cent. Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), which compiled the report, said a “vaping revolution” had taken place over the past decade. Of the 4.3 million current vapers, about 2.4 million are former cigarette smokers, 1.5 million are current smokers and 350,000 have never smoked. The proportion of current e-cigarette users who have never smoked has increased from 4.9 per cent last year to 8.1 per cent this year – an “all time high”, the report said.
In 2022, 35 per cent of current vapers also smoked. The report, based on a You-Gov survey of 13,000 adults, found 28 per cent of current smokers had never tried an e-cigarette, with 10 per cent of this group saying they were “concerned e-cigarettes are not safe enough”. One in five former smokers said they used a vape to quit smoking. Vapers said the main reason they used e-cigarettes was to quit smoking and to prevent them from starting to smoke again. Another 14 per cent said they used vapes “because they enjoy it”. The authors suggested that younger adults are driving sales of disposable vapes, with 48 per cent of 18- to 24- year-old vapers using this type of device. “There are now five times as many vapers as there were in 2012, with millions having used the devices as part of a quit attempt,” said Hazel Cheeseman, deputy chief executive of Ash. “However, they haven’t worked for everyone. Just under half of smokers who have tried them have stopped using them and 28 per cent have never tried one at all.”