Should you switch to vaping?
Health effects of vaping vs smoking
If you are a smoker
- quitting smoking is the best thing you can do to improve your health. There is support available to help you quit.
- completely replacing cigarette smoking with vaping will reduce your exposure to harmful chemicals.
- there are short-term general health improvements if you completely switch from smoking cigarettes to vaping products.
Vaping is less harmful than smoking. Many of the toxic and cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco and the tobacco smoke form when tobacco is burned.
Vaping products do not:
- produce smoke
- contain tobacco
- involve burning
Except for nicotine, vaping products typically contain:
- a fraction of the 7,000 chemicals found in tobacco smoke
- lower levels of several of the harmful chemicals found in smoke
Vaping to help quit smoking
Quitting smoking can be difficult, but it is possible. Vaping products and e-cigarettes deliver nicotine in a less harmful way than smoking cigarettes. These products may reduce health risks for smokers who can't or don't want to quit using nicotine:
- on their own
- by using counselling services
- by using medication or approved nicotine replacement therapies like:
- gums
- patches
- lozenges
While evidence is still emerging, some evidence suggests that using e-cigarettes is linked to improved rates of success.
While quitting cigarettes, you may go through a time when you use both cigarettes and vaping products. Switching from tobacco cigarettes to vaping will reduce your exposure to many toxic and cancer causing chemicals.
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