Office of National Statistics (UK) finds 0.14% e-cig use among never-smokers

[Nate760]

BBC News - E-cigarette 'lure' fears might be unfounded

But...but...renormalization! Gateway! Won't someone think of the children??

 

[Nate760]

Sorry, didn't see there was a preexisting thread. Please combine or delete.

 

[Jman8]

.14%? That's like a thousand times higher than it was just 10 years ago. Oh, the humanity.

 

[Mig01]

For those who speak of renormalization of smoking, I would be interested in finding out the proportion of that 0.14% who use -ecigs and never smoked that then moved to smoking. Even if 50% of those 0.14% moved to smoking, it would mean that 0.07% of never smokers started by using e-cigs as a gateway to tobacco: that means 7 persons per10 000. If 10% of those 0.14% moved to tobacco, it would mean that e-cigs are a gateway to tobacco for 0.014% of the never smoker population, or 14 persons per 100 000.
On the other hand, if we assumed that only 7% of smokers who start vaping quit smoking tobacco (the most pesimistic data on the success rate of quitting tobacco via vaping, comparable with the success rate of gum and patches), and furthermore than only 10 % of those quit vaping eventually to breathe only air, it would still make e-cigs a "gateway" from tobacco to nothing at all in .7% of smokers who start vaping, or 70 persons per 10 000.
This means that even with the high gateway to tobacco hypothesis (the 50% of never smokers who tried e-cigs and then start to use tobacco), the gateway is clearly in the direction of tobacco to nothing via e-cigs, rather than the opposite, from nothing to tobacco via e-cigs.
It is very hard to compute the effect for the overall population. I could have used the proportion of the population who are smokers to start with (around 17%), but I do not know for sure what proportion of those started on e-cigs. Moreover, that would be misleading when I tried to look at the "never a smoker" population, because even though 83% of the population do not smoke, a number of those are not never smokers, but ex smokers.It would be very interesting however for someone who has the numbers ( if anyone has them), to compute the gateway net effect ((from tobacco to nothing via e-cigs) minus (from nothing to tobacco via e-cigs)) on the overall population.

 

[Nate760]

For those who speak of renormalization of smoking, I would be interested in finding out the proportion of that 0.14% who use -ecigs and never smoked that then moved to smoking. Even if 50% of those 0.14% moved to smoking, it would mean that 0.07% of never smokers started by using e-cigs as a gateway to tobacco: that means 7 persons per10 000. If 10% of those 0.14% moved to tobacco, it would mean that e-cigs are a gateway to tobacco for 0.014% of the never smoker population, or 14 persons per 100 000.
On the other hand, if we assumed that only 7% of smokers who start vaping quit smoking tobacco (the most pesimistic data on the success rate of quitting tobacco via vaping, comparable with the success rate of gum and patches), and furthermore than only 10 % of those quit vaping eventually to breathe only air, it would still make e-cigs a "gateway" from tobacco to nothing at all in .7% of smokers who start vaping, or 70 persons per 10 000.
This means that even with the high gateway to tobacco hypothesis (the 50% of never smokers who tried e-cigs and then start to use tobacco), the gateway is clearly in the direction of tobacco to nothing via e-cigs, rather than the opposite, from nothing to tobacco via e-cigs.
It is very hard to compute the effect for the overall population. I could have used the proportion of the population who are smokers to start with (around 17%), but I do not know for sure what proportion of those started on e-cigs. Moreover, that would be misleading when I tried to look at the "never a smoker" population, because even though 83% of the population do not smoke, a number of those are not never smokers, but ex smokers.It would be very interesting however for someone who has the numbers ( if anyone has them), to compute the gateway net effect ((from tobacco to nothing via e-cigs) minus (from nothing to tobacco via e-cigs)) on the overall population.

The proponents of the gateway hypothesis never bother to consider the only question that matters: why would a person who's habituated to vaping have any inclination to start smoking cigarettes? Smoking to vaping is a natural progression. Vaping to smoking is not.