An anti-smoking group has announced that several studies have found no evidence that the use of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products (HTPs) in countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, France and Switzerland causes non-smokers and young adults to smoke combustible cigarettes.
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)-UK cites the results of five large surveys of 11- to 16-year-olds in the UK between 2015 and 2017, showing that the majority of young people who tried e-cigarettes did not become regular users.
"Overall, there is no evidence that e-cigarettes increase smoking rates in this age group. In fact, smoking rates among young people have declined since e-cigarettes became available," ASH-UK said.
A time-series analysis conducted in the UK between 2007 and 2018 by researchers led by Emma Beard showed that across the sample, increases in e-cigarette use in England did not appear to be associated with increased uptake among 16- to 24-year-olds smoking rate.
A 2022 study by researchers at the University of Bristol found that, based on the current balance of evidence, using triangular data from recent population-level cross-background comparisons, individual-level genetic analysis and modelling, we do believe that causal claims are about The strong gateway effect from vaping to smoking is unlikely to last, and it is too early to rule out other smaller or opposite effects.
A 2020 study by Dr. Colin Mendelsohn and Wayne Hall concluded that claims that e-cigarettes are a route to smoking are not convincing.
"Smoking was more frequent than vaping and vice versa, frequent vaping in never-smokers was rare, and this association could be more reasonably explained by a shared responsibility model," they said.
The University of Queensland in Australia published another comprehensive analysis of whether vaping leads to smoking. The study also concluded that there is little evidence of a gateway effect. If the gateway effect does exist, it is likely to be small, the study said.
A 2021 study by Wayne Hall and Gary Chan on the portal effect of e-cigarettes found that e-cigarette use has not been accompanied by an increase in smoking among young Americans.