In a landmark 2025 study published in Internal and Emergency Medicine, researchers from the University of Glasgow and other public health institutions are calling attention to a critical issue in scientific communication: the widespread misuse of the term “e-cigarette smoking” in academic literature. The paper, led by Yusuff Adebayo Adebisi and colleagues, offers a comprehensive review of the phrase’s prevalence and its harmful implications for science, policy, and public perception.

🔥 Smoking ≠ Vaping

The term “e-cigarette smoking” appears simple enough—but it’s misleading and fundamentally incorrect. Smoking refers to the combustion of tobacco, a process that releases tar, carbon monoxide, and thousands of toxic chemicals. Vaping, by contrast, involves aerosolization—heating a nicotine-containing liquid to produce vapor without burning anything.

Yet, the study found that from 2015 to 2024, the phrase and its variants appeared in thousands of scientific papers, including some of the most widely cited studies on nicotine and tobacco. Google Scholar alone returned more than 4,600 mentions. This kind of linguistic slippage conflates two behaviors with drastically different risk profiles, and the consequences are not merely semantic.

📉 Scientific Confusion → Policy Problems

The continued use of “e-cigarette smoking” does more than muddle terminology. According to the study, it actively undermines:

• Public health messaging: If vaping is casually equated with smoking, adult smokers considering switching may believe there’s no point—discouraging a move that could significantly reduce their exposure to harmful toxicants.
• Scientific credibility: Imprecise language can cast doubt on the objectivity of peer-reviewed research and skew how results are interpreted by clinicians, journalists, and policymakers.
• Clinical care: Doctors relying on flawed terminology may inappropriately classify vapers as smokers, leading to misguided treatment decisions—such as unnecessary cancer screenings or irrelevant cessation advice.
• Regulation: Equating the two behaviors may prompt governments to apply cigarette-style restrictions to vape products—policies that could backfire by reducing access to safer nicotine alternatives.

🧠 Words Matter—Especially in Public Health

The authors of the review don’t mince words. They call the use of “e-cigarette smoking” an entrenched linguistic error that “obscures differences in addiction mechanisms, harm reduction potential, and public perceptions of risk.” They urge scientific journals to revise editorial policies, adopt standardized terms like “vaping” nó “e-cigarette use”, and avoid behavior conflation.

They’re not alone. Leading harm reduction experts have long pointed out that calling vapers “smokers” reinforces stigma, confuses the public, and helps justify overly broad regulations that fail to reflect the true risk spectrum of nicotine products.

🚫 Let’s Stop Calling It “Smoking”

This isn’t just a matter of correcting language. It’s about ensuring that people—especially adult smokers looking for safer options—receive accurate information from research, media, and healthcare providers. It’s about building policies on evidence, not outdated or misleading terminology.

As the authors conclude, “Mischaracterizing vaping as a form of smoking may discourage harm reduction, distort risk communication, and undermine the development of balanced, evidence-informed policy.”

Let’s raise the bar. Let’s say what we mean—and stop calling vaping “smoking.”

📚 Study Reference:
Adebisi YA, Jimoh ND, Ngoma C. “‘E-cigarette smoking’ is a misleading term: a critical review of its use in academic literature.” Internal and Emergency Medicine. 2025. Link to study