More than half of vapers quit tobacco

Around 50 per cent of electronic-cigarette users have given up tobacco, meaning that for the first time, vapers who no longer smoke outnumber those who still do, according to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

Use of e-cigarettes, including vaping kits, has quadrupled in the past five years, with smokers using them to "help them give up [smoking] completely and to save money", the Daily Telegraph reports.

It appears to be working, with ASH reporting around 1.5 million of the UK's 2.9 million vapers saying they have given up tobacco.

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The findings were "encouraging", Ann McNeill, professor of tobacco addiction at King's College London, told The Guardian.

She said: "The message for the 1.3 million vapers who still smoke is that they need to go further and switch completely."

However, the same report also found people overestimate the health risks of vaping.

Despite Public Health England's conclusion that e-cigarettes are 95 per cent less harmful than traditional cigarettes, a quarter of respondents believed vaping was as harmful as or more harmful than tobacco.

ASH chief executive Deborah Arnott said such inaccurate fears had slowed the rapid growth of e-cigarette use.

Praising the "excellent" news that so many vapers had kicked tobacco, she also warned that more than a third of the UK's nine million smokers had never tried e-cigarettes, with most citing health fears as their reason for resisting.

"It's very important smokers realise that vaping is much, much less harmful than smoking," she said.