Yet Another Vaping Myth Busted – This Time By Scientists

Google the word “vaping” on any day and you can bet that high on the list of results will be unsubstantiated tabloid articles about how vaping leads to more young people taking up cigarette smoking.

The vaping community get incredibly frustrated by all the media negativity around e-cigarettes, and firmly believe that, if vaping is a gateway to anything, it’s OUT of smoking and should be endorsed as a smoking cessation tool far and wide.

This is why we’re pleased to see new research from University College London and published in the much-respected New Scientist magazine that largely debunks the theory that e-cigarettes are creating a nation of young nicotine addicts. In a recent analysis of trends in cigarette and e-cigarette use in 16 to 24-year-olds in England, it states quite categorically that vaping doesn’t appear to be a gateway to smoking tobacco.

Is It Genetic? Or Peer Pressure?

While acknowledging that there are studies that show teenagers who use vape mod kits have a greater probability of smoking, the new report points out that that doesn’t prove that the first behaviour causes the second. The report’s lead author, Professor Lion Shahab from UCL, said: “It could be the case that there’s a common vulnerability that explains this association. That could be, for instance, because there’s some genetic predisposition to try different things or there’s environmental pressure to try things.”

Read the full text here