Viewed from the Smoking Data 2022: Vaping Does Help Tobacco Reduction

The adult smoking habits in the UK
The “Adult smoking habits in the UK: 2021” statistical bulletin has been released recently. Collected by the ONS using the APS (Annual Population Surveys) and the OPN (Opinions & Lifestyle Survey), the smoking data is shown in various aspects including the percentages of smokers, demographic breakdowns, changes over time, and the use of e-cigarettes.

Findings:
1.3% of the UK’s adults (18 and over) smoke cigarettes in 2021- around 6.6 million people, which is the lowest proportion of current smokers since 2011.
2.Among these current smokers, 14.5% were in Scotland, 14.1% were in Wales, 13.8% in Northern Ireland, and 13.0% in England.
3.5% are female, while 15.1% are male.
4.Current smokers aged from 25 to 34 dominates the highest proportion of 15.8%, in contract elders(65 and over) rate the lowest at 8.0%.
5.In Great Britain, 7.7% of those aged 16 or over stated that they vape daily or occasionally - equivalent to 4 million adults, seemed as an increase compared to the 6.4% in 2020.

Summary:
The decline in smoking cigarettes should be somehow attributed to the use of e-cigarettes by finding 1 and finding 5.

To be more professional, we can learn from James Tucker, one of the statisticians, claiming that the decrease in the percentage of current smokers may be partly because of the rise in vaping and e-cigarette use.

Additionally, in 2021, more people used vaping devices on a regular basis, with 16 to 24-year-olds having the highest usage.

The status of vaping in Ireland
According to the Healthy Ireland Survey 2022 collected from around 7500 people, conducted by Ipsos MRBI, here are several findings discovered below.

Findings:
1.18% of survey respondents are current smokers, meanwhile, 14% smoke daily and 4% smoke occasionally.
2.Men are more possible to smoke proved to those current smokers aged 25 to 34 as 34% are men, and 14% are women.  
3.46% of people who have been smoking for one year intended to quit and 23% succeeded.
4.E-cigarette use is reported by 3% of the population, with a further 3% saying they had tried them in the past but no longer use them.
5.Those aged under 25 lead the trend of vaping and 6% of this age group still use e-cigarettes.

Summary:
The rate of vapers in 2022 has been down to the 3% from the 5% reported in 2019. It may be caused by the anti-vaping call of the WHO(World Health Organisation), which published some harms regarding vaping.

In July 2022, the Health Committee came up with some advice for the Tobacco and Nicotine Inhaling Products Bill, including a ban on all vaping flavours except tobacco flavour. This event triggered a heated discussion in the Irish community.

Should vaping be banned?

Whether vaping should be banned is a never-ended battle between people who support vaping and people against vaping. This time it is provoked again by the Health Committee in Ireland.

It is no denying that vaping is 95% safer than smoking reported by the UK government. Learned from the adult smoke habit 2022 below, we can find that vaping is beneficial to quit smoking.

Vaping is an option born for getting rid of nicotine addiction, even though nicotine usage remains a bad effect on human health. What we expect most are the original purpose and the final result.

If vote for a ban by just considering the partial phenomena of vaping, the possibility of tobacco reduction for most smokers will be dramatically narrowed.

Vaping products enable vapers to vape with measurable nicotine, 0mg nicotine products are also supplied in the market. Therefore, it is unreasonable to prohibit vaping--- a good way to quit.