IS VAPING BETTER FOR YOU THAN SMOKING?

A recent survey that was conducted in 2022 showed that there are now over 4 million adult users of E-Cigarettes in the UK alone, the highest this number has ever been. And with these numbers increasing, the number of adult smokers in the UK has dropped to the lowest it’s ever been. Many people are choosing to ditch the cigarettes and turn to use an E-Cigarette as their preferred method of Nicotine Replacement Therapy.

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But what are the benefits of vaping? While vaping products are relatively new and research is ongoing, it has already been established that switching completely to vaping nicotine is less than harmful than continuing to smoke.

You will save a considerable amount of money

The cost of smoking and cigarettes in general in today’s market is currently the highest it’s ever been, with the average price of a pack of 20 cigarettes costing between £11-£13. In Canada it’s between $10-$13, depending on the province.  And when you think that some people smoke 20 or more cigarettes a day, they’re going to be spending the above amounts every day, which equates to well over £70 a week, £250+ a month, and thousands of pounds or dollars a year just on cigarettes.

So that’s one of the main benefits of vaping, is that the cost of vaping is nowhere near what the cost of smoking is. The initial outlay cost when you first start vaping will always be the most expensive part. You’re going to need a good quality e-cigarette device, plus spare coils/pods which is the primary maintenance you have to keep up with. And of course you’ll need bottles of e-liquids to use in your device.

But e-liquid is probably the cheapest part of vaping out of all the things that are needed. For example, a 10ml bottle of vape juice can be bought for as little as 69p, which will get you great quality, Cheap UK made e-liquid, and should last on average for 2-3 days. So spending 69p every three days on e-liquid is a lot more reasonable than £36 ($60 CAD) every three days on cigarettes.

Your health will improve

Smoking is the primary cause of preventable illness and premature death, accounting for approximately 78,000 deaths every year in England.

And it’s not only in England that smoking causes these problems as it is one of the biggest causes of death around the world every single year. Since 2000 smoking has killed more than one million people in Canada. Smoking also seriously harms nearly every vital organ within the human body and drastically decreases your quality of life as well as your life expectancy. Smokers are vulnerable to contracting serious and sometimes deadly diseases such as heart and lung disease, as well as increasing the risk of having a heart attack and/or a stroke.

Public Health England declares Vaping as 95% safer than smoking, and E-Liquids do not contain cancer causing chemicals like what cigarettes produce when they are lit. Vaping products – while most of them contain nicotine – contain only a small fraction of the thousands of chemicals found in tobacco smoke. That includes lower levels of the potentially harmful ones. Vaping does not produce tar or carbon monoxide.

However, when you quit smoking, you will start to see your health improve almost instantly. Within the first 48 hours the carbon monoxide in your bloodstream will start to disperse and your oxygen levels will start to regulate back to what they should be. And within five years of quitting smoking, the risk of death from lung cancer will be less than half of what it is to a smoker.

Second hand vapour is not harmful

Cigarette smoke is the primary hub for where all of the harmful chemicals associated with smoking harbour and linger around. And for this reason, second hand smoke is harmful to not only you, but others around you if you’re a smoker. Especially children and older people who are vulnerable to illness. This is called “passive smoking” and can lead to people contracting deadly diseases that are linked with smoking such as heart disease, a stroke, or even lung cancer.

It’s not been proven that Vaping carries the same risks, as second hand vapour from E-Liquid does not contain any chemicals that are harmful to either you or the people around you if they inhaled it. And also one of the benefits of vapour is that it doesn’t linger around in the air like what cigarette smoke does. Due to it being vapour, it soon disperses and disappears as quick as it was created.

You have control over your nicotine intake

A really good benefit of choosing to vape and use e-liquid is that you have full control over the amount of nicotine that you are taking on board. You can choose the nicotine strength in your e-liquid that is best suited for you.

You’ll want to use an appropriate nicotine strength in your e-liquid that matches up to how much nicotine you’d previously been getting from smoking cigarettes. Choosing an e-liquid with a nicotine strength too high will be too harsh on your throat. And choosing a strength too low will not curb your cravings for nicotine. You could find yourself still wanting a cigarette. You don’t want that – since the objective is to wean yourself off cigarettes.

Much more flavour options with vape juice

With cigarettes and tobacco, you have the one tobacco flavour. Some people will use menthol enhancements to flavour their cigarettes. But since May 2022, Menthol cigarettes have been banned from sale in places like the UK. That’s also true for flavoured tobacco which some people enjoyed using to get a different flavour aside from the plain tobacco flavour. 

One of the main benefits of using e-liquid is having access to thousands of different flavours of e-liquid that you can try as many as you want until you find one that you really like. You can try as many flavours as you want until you eventually find a favourite one. 

Top photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash