WVS NEWS: E-cigarettes and vaping are marking a turning point in global smoking trends

Written by Antonia Di Lorenzo | ECigIntelligence

E-cigarettes and vaping are sparking a global revolution in public health, with new research showing they’re helping millions of smokers quit faster than ever before, outpacing traditional anti-smoking efforts and reshaping the nicotine market.

A new report, the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction 2024: A Situation Report (GSTHR 2024), has shed light on the growing role of e-cigarettes and other safer nicotine products in reducing smoking rates worldwide. The report provides evidence that vaping and similar alternatives are driving a significant global transition away from combustible tobacco. This shift, the report suggests, has the potential to deliver substantial public health benefits, far exceeding those achieved by traditional tobacco control measures alone.

The report shows that the global number of vapers has surged from 58m in 2018 to an estimated 114m in 2023, forming part of a larger group of 144m nicotine consumers now using safer products. This growth has coincided with a notable decline in the inflation-adjusted sales of combustible tobacco products, which have fallen by nearly 9% since 2015. In contrast, sales of safer nicotine products have skyrocketed, increasing almost six-fold over the same period to reach $96bn in 2024.

‘A dirty delivery system’ still dominates

Despite these promising trends, the report highlights persistent challenges. Legal access to safer nicotine alternatives is now available to over two-thirds of the global population in nearly 130 countries, but cigarettes remain universally accessible. The World Health Organization continues to oppose tobacco harm-reduction strategies, promoting stringent regulations that often hinder access to safer nicotine products. In some countries, this has led to bans on safer alternatives, leaving cigarettes as the only widely available option.

The evidence from GSTHR 2024 demonstrates a clear substitution effect between use of safer nicotine products and cigarette smoking. Countries such as the UK, the US, New Zealand and Sweden have seen smoking rates decline far faster than traditional tobacco control measures have previously achieved. In regions like Hungary and South Korea, data shows that reductions in cigarette sales are closely aligned with increased adoption of heated tobacco products, illustrating the impact of safer alternatives in helping smokers transition away from traditional cigarettes.

Harm-reduction experts involved in the report emphasise the urgency of supportive regulations to ensure these trends continue. Gerry Stimson, co-founder of Knowledge-Action-Change, which runs the GSTHR project, stressed the opportunity safer nicotine products present to tackle smoking-related diseases.

“The cigarette is a dirty delivery system,” Stimson said, “but it became the dominant route of nicotine administration, with the attendant risks of combustion and smoke inhalation leading to disease, disability and millions of deaths every year. But people can now consume nicotine without burning tobacco, by switching to significantly safer alternatives like vapes, heated tobacco products, snus and nicotine pouches.”

Opposing harm reduction keeps smokers smoking

Executive editor and lead author of GSTHR 2024 Harry Shapiro underscores the stakes, warning that opposition to tobacco harm reduction is effectively a war on people, not products. He says that maintaining barriers to safer nicotine products ultimately perpetuates smoking, which keeps tobacco industry profits flowing at the expense of public health.

The findings from GSTHR 2024 signal an important moment in global efforts to combat smoking-related diseases. With growing evidence of the public health benefits of safer nicotine products, governments are being called on to embrace risk-proportionate regulations. By making safer alternatives more accessible and affordable, the global burden of smoking could be reduced significantly, delivering one of the greatest public health achievements of this century.

Photo: Βασίλης Ταραμανλής