The future of vaping is something that many people think about, whether they are a smoker or a vaper. Smoking is well recognised as being a harmful habit, end of story. Vaping, however, has taken the world by storm and is now widely recognised as being the healthier alternative. That all sounds great but the jury is still out for a lot of people which means that there are smokers who could benefit from switching to vaping but can’t/won’t because of the many unanswered questions they have about the relatively new hobby. Am official vaping survey is doing the rounds which aims to help with this problem.
The UKCTAS (UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies) department of Nottingham Univ, England, is looking for individuals who meet certain criteria to answer a few questions in order to find out what these unanswered questions are. The data gleaned from this survey could be used in a variety of ways. The main and most useful way we expect this information to be used would be to fine-tune awareness efforts in the form of public health campaigns, education for all ages, advice given by health professionals and more.
You can fill in the vaping survey here until the 9th March when it will be closed in order for the researchers to sift through the data. It is only a short survey, around four minutes in length and researcher ideally want to see answers from those who both vape and smoke, smokers, vapers and people who have never smoked. If you fall into any of these categories please take the time to answer the questions if you can.
Most people recognise and accept that smoking is dangerous and can and likely will cause a number of health-related issues. The awareness is there. What is missing for some people is why vaping is such a good alternative and why it is likely to be something that works for them and they may enjoy just as much as smoking, if not more.
The Motivation Behind This Vaping Survey
Vaping has completely changed the way that people may approach quitting smoking. It has offered an alternative that allows smokers to walk away from dangerous, toxic and (according to WHO) potentially cancer-causing chemicals in order to quit smoking when other more traditional methods have failed in the past (i.e. nicotine replacement therapy, going “cold turkey”, group support sessions, and so on).
Scientists have shown that when it comes to quitting smoking the smokers is not just walking away from nicotine, as many previously assumed. They also struggle to give up physical and social habits. Social habits are self-explanatory. Physical habits that inhibit smokers from quitting may include the hand to mouth action, having something in your hand and the inhale/exhale action, which any report to find calming/relaxing.
Clearly, giving up smoking is difficult, more difficult than many people realise. Vaping makes it so much easier however there are still many people who are not convinced by vaping. The reason for this, despite individual smokers either wanting to quit or knowing they “should” for health reasons, is the fact that there are many unanswered questions about vaping and a number of mistruths and myths flying around.
By putting together this survey and collating the answers the UKCTAS team hope to be able to see what questions need to be answered, what information needs to be shared and what more can be done to help people make an informed decision about whether switching to vaping from smoking is a good idea for them.
In Summary
There is a lot more information about the study via the vaping survey link above. When it comes down to it Public Health England, many NHS professionals, many MPS, health charities, scientists, researchers and more all support vaping as a valid cessation device (which it hasn’t get been classified as by the government, though work is ongoing to try and arrange that) and/or as a valid alternative to smoking.
Public Health England has classified vaping as being at least 95% less harmful than smoking. Smoking rates have dropped since the number of vapers has risen. All of this points to there needing to be more information and the right type of information out there about vaping so that even the most ardent smoker can make a choice about whether to switch over or not based on facts rather than media headlines and social media posts.