More Proof from FDA Population Data Showing E-Cigarettes As Popular Quit-Smoking Aids

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).