Vaping to help adults quit smoking

Using a vape (or ‘e-cigarette’) is known as ‘vaping’.

Nicotine vaping devices (or ‘vapes’) can help adult tobacco smokers to quit smoking. Vaping devices usually contain nicotine, the addictive chemical in cigarettes, and allow the user to inhale nicotine in a vapour rather than smoke by heating a solution (‘e-liquid’). The solution also typically includes propylene glycol, vegetable glycerine, flavourings.

E-liquids come in different nicotine strengths, so you control how much nicotine you need to help with cravings and other withdrawal symptoms, such as feeling irritable and having low mood.  

Nicotine itself is not very harmful and has been used safely in medicines to help people stop smoking.
  
For those who already smoke, nicotine vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking and is an effective tool for quitting smoking. Switching to vaping significantly reduces your exposure to toxins in tobacco smoke that can cause cancer, lung disease, and heart and circulatory diseases such as heart attack and stroke.

Vaping hasn’t been around long enough to know the risks of its long-term use. If you're vaping to quit smoking, you should aim to eventually stop vaping too.

Whilst tobacco smoking is significantly more harmful to your health than vaping, vaping is not completely risk-free particularly for people who have never smoked and therefore vapes are not recommended for non-smokers and young people. It's best not to vape or smoke around babies and children. If you don’t smoke, don’t start vaping.