Harrogate-based charity Yorkshire Cancer Research is raising awareness of the facts about vaping to tackle growing misconceptions about its safety.
The charity supports the use of vaping as a tool to quit smoking and has spearheaded programmes and initiatives to help bring better access to vapes for people who smoke across the region.
Research shows that vaping has a significantly lower cancer risk than smoking, with key chemicals linked to cancer present at much lower levels in people who vape compared to people who smoke.
However, data from Action on Smoking and Health shows that in 2024, a record 50% of adults believed vaping was more or equally as harmful as smoking, compared to 33% in 2022.
Dr Stuart Griffiths, Director of Research at Yorkshire Cancer Research said:
“Vaping products are an effective method of supporting people to stop smoking. More than 4,600 people quit smoking each year using vapes in Yorkshire alone.
“However, research shows an increasing number of people believe vapes are as unhealthy as tobacco and yet the evidence clearly demonstrates this is not the case.
“This misunderstanding could prevent people who may need vapes to stop smoking from using them.
“Vapes play a key role in helping to save lives in Yorkshire by reducing smoking levels in the region, which are some of the highest in the country.”
Yorkshire Cancer Research has committed to funding more than £2.7 million of stop smoking services in the region and has helped 4,400 people successfully quit smoking.
These programmes are underpinned by strong evidence which shows using nicotine-containing vaping products increases smoking quit rates compared to nicotine replacement therapy alone.
As a result of the charity’s funding and subsequent success of a stop smoking trial that offered free vape kits to people in the Halifax area, Yorkshire Smokefree Calderdale has now embedded vapes into its stop smoking service.
The charity’s own stop smoking service, which launched in January 2024, has so far helped more than 350 people, with 60% of those who have successfully quit smoking using both vapes and nicotine replacement therapy for support.
The service is offered both face-to-face at its centre in Harrogate or by phone or video call.
Smoking is responsible for more than 4,600 new cases of cancer every year in Yorkshire and is often linked to cancer types with poor survival rates, such as lung, oesophageal and pancreatic cancer.
More people in Yorkshire die of lung cancer than any other cancer type, with 2,857 families in the region sadly losing a loved one to lung cancer in 2021.
Dr Griffiths continued:
“The best thing people can do for their health is to stop smoking completely and for good.
“It is never too late to quit; stopping smoking at any age can lengthen and improve quality of life.
“Research shows that while vaping products are not risk free, they are significantly less harmful than smoking.
“This means they should only be used as a stop smoking product."
He said:
“While the charity is supportive of measures that aim to curb vaping among young people, vaping products must remain accessible to people who smoke, so as many people as possible have the opportunity to stop smoking for good.
“Yorkshire Cancer Research wants to highlight that vaping products are not lifestyle products, but are effective stop smoking aids for use by people who smoke or are at risk of smoking.
“It is crucial that this opportunity to save lives is not lost.”
Yorkshire Cancer Research supports the following measures to tackle smoking:
- The passing of proposed laws which will raise the minimum age of cigarette sales by one year, every year, so a whole generation of children will never be able to buy cigarettes or other tobacco products. In addition, these laws would ban smoking in outdoor spaces, such as hospital grounds, outside schools and in playgrounds.
- A tax on the tobacco industry which would raise £700 million a year to fund stop smoking support services.
- Stop smoking support to be offered as part of every interaction a person who smokes has with the NHS and for it to be included as part of the new national lung screening programme.
To read the charity’s full position on vaping, visit Vaping - Yorkshire Cancer Research.
For more information and to sign up to Yorkshire Cancer Research’s Stop Smoking Support, visit Free Stop Smoking Support - Yorkshire Cancer Research.
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