While
the number of American vapers declined over the last three years (as I reported
here),
e-cigarettes were still far more popular quit-smoking aids than medicinal
nicotine or other drugs, according to researchers at the University of California
San Diego (here).
Tarik Benmarhnia and colleagues used information from Waves
1 and 2 of the FDA-funded Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH)
Study to evaluate “the influence of [e-cigarettes] and pharmaceutical cessation
aids [varenicline, bupropion and nicotine medicines, NRT] on persistent
abstinence (≥30 days) from cigarettes, and reduced cigarette consumption”
during the period 2013 to 2015. They
concluded:
“Our
results indicate that [e-cigarettes] are a more popular choice than approved
pharmaceutical products
as a smoking cessation aid among US quit attempters, over three quarters of
whom were
daily smokers. In the future, as [vapor]
products continue to evolve to make nicotine delivery
more similar to that obtained from a cigarette, it is possible that they may
play a bigger role in assisting smokers to quit combustible
tobacco.”
This study confirms my research group’s earlier analysis of Wave
1 PATH data: E-cigarettes are among the
most commonly used quit aids for American smokers, and they are the only aid
more likely to make one a former smoker (i.e., a successful quitter) than
trying to quit cold-turkey (here).