Will starting vaping eventually lead you to start smoking? According to new research, the answer is no. As in, the whole “gateway” theory is unsubstantiated, at least as far as available evidence is concerned. But let’s tackle this in some more depth to see what it’s all about.

First of all, vaping isn’t for non-smokers. If you’ve never smoked, don’t start vaping. Simple, right? Yeah. Well, it should be. Unfortunately, there are people who have never smoked that pick up a vape at some point and start vaping. Should they? Obviously not because e-cigarettes are intended as a less harmful alternative to conventional cigarettes and other combustible tobacco products? Do they work for that purpose? Most definitely.

For the people who have never smoked before that start vaping, it’s truly a foolish choice to get started. And this is coming from a vaping website that is very much pro-vaping (but only as an alternative to smoking). We believe that vaping can and does help smokers quit smoking, which is backed by plenty of credible evidence that’s recognized by various authorities, including governments and health departments.

Why Would Anyone Switch To Smoking When Vaping Is Better?

Back to the main topic, can vaping lead to smoking? Theoretically, sure. But will it? To answer that, let’s take a look at how vaping compares to smoking.

Here’s how we see vaping as it compares to smoking:

• Vapes taste better thanks to the countless flavors of vape juice that are out there. Cigarettes come in two disgusting flavors, menthol and tobacco. While you might like the taste of tobacco, burnt tobacco tastes terrible if you ask us and that’s what you get from a burning cigarette. If you’re using an e-cig, you can opt for caramel tobacco, vanilla tobacco or any number of better alternatives.
• Vapor from an e-cigarette does not have tar in it. So no sticky gross tar to get trapped inside your lungs and throat. This is a major win for e-cigs because the tar in tobacco smoke damages the small tubes (bronchioles) in your lungs that are used to absorb oxygen and it damages the small hairs (cilia) inside your lungs that protect them from dirt and infection.
• Vaping can be cheaper than smoking. It’s not always less expensive but it definitely can be. You can save upwards of thousands of dollars every year by using an e-cigarette instead of smoking a conventional cigarette. Vapers who use disposable vapes might not see savings to this extent because single-use devices tend to cost more to use but vapers who use refillable vapes that have rechargeable batteries will often see significant savings over time.
• E-cigarettes are less harmful. The currently available scientific evidence shows that vaping is a lot less harmful than smoking. But it’s important to note that we don’t know the long-term consequences, if any, of vaping. When people mention this fact, that we don’t know the long-term consequences of vaping, it’s worth noting that we do know the long-term consequences of smoking, which include death. So yeah, we might not know what impact vaping might have on our health over the decades but we do know that cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States.

What The Study Says About The Gateway Effect

Now let’s get back to the new research and what it says about vaping not being a gateway to smoking.

The gateway effect, also known as the stepping-stone theory, is basically just a catchphrase used to encompass the idea of one thing leading to another. So you start vaping and then because you vape, you eventually start smoking, but that’s not what the latest research shows. On the contrary, the study, which was led by researchers at Queen Mary University, found that there’s no indication vaping with nicotine e-cigarettes leads to cigarette smoking.

The study’s lead author, Professor Peter Hajek, PhD, said that the study’s findings “alleviate the concern that access to e-cigarettes and other low-risk nicotine products promote smoking.”

“The results of this study alleviate the concern that access to e-cigarettes and other low-risk nicotine products promote smoking. There is no sign of that, and there are some signs that they in fact compete against cigarettes, but more data over a longer time period are needed to determine the size of this effect.”

The study is the largest of its kind and the most comprehensive. It was funded by the National Insitute for Health and Care Research and published in the journal Public Health Research.