As we headed into 2019, Public Health England (PHE) released a video to try and correct the misperceptions which surround vaping. One study showed that less than 6 out of 10 smokers could correctly identify vaping as being less harmful than smoking. This is of course concerning but not entirely surprising, with the abundance of sensationalist anti-vaping news which plagues the industry.
This inaccuracy of smokers’ knowledge has been noted among professionals and Professor John Newton, director of health improvement at PHE said,
“It would be tragic if thousands of smokers who could quit with the help of an e-cigarette are being put off due to false fears about safety”.
The aforementioned video from PHE shows a comparison of the effects from smoking and that of vaping. The video has been watched over 1 million times in a matter of weeks. Cancer Research UK has now also released a video, featuring facts on vaping.
With 6.1 million people still smoking in the UK, these informative videos and campaigns are vitally important. The numbers of vapers have levelled out over the past year with around 3 million people in the UK vaping.
Some argue that vaping has reached its full potential in the UK. With over 6 million people in the UK still smoking and around 40% of these not being suitably informed, there’s still a large proportion of smokers who could be missing out.
Due to stringent regulations it’s very difficult for vaping companies to portray the benefits of vaping to smokers. This is why campaigning from the likes of Cancer Research UK and PHE are essential to cut through the overblown headlines and facts and figures backed up by reliable research.
