Answers to Smokers Most Common Worries about UK E-Cigarettes
Vaping has grown in leaps and bounds over the last few years, with more and more smokers trying e-cigarettes and making the switch to a healthier life. But there are still millions of smokers who haven't and who refuse to make the switch, even if they want to stop smoking. Recently ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) released their yearly survey called the "Use of electronic cigarettes (vapourisers) among adults in Great Britain", where among other things they asked those smokers why they had never even tried e-cigarettes.
Here then are the top three answers given when smokers were asked why they didn't want to make the switch, and our answers to them.
"I don't think they would help me"
The first answer on the list is that many smokers don't believe that e-cigarettes could help them quit, but just by looking at the number of smokers who have now quit with e-cigarettes proves this wrong . Almost 3 million people in the UK alone use e-cigarettes, with half of those people having given up on cigarettes completely and the other half reporting that they have significantly cut down. This survey of course doesn't even mention the millions of people who have used e-cigarettes to quit in other countries. In fact in the last few years the NHS has started suggesting e-cigarettes to those who want to stop smoking as they have been shown to be more helpful to people trying to quit then other methods such as nicotine gum or patches.
Some smokers think that an e-cigarette can't feel the same as a cigarette and so it can't replace the cigarettes they are using. That might be true when you use one of the bigger box mods, after all they are designed to look and feel like a different experience, but here at SMOKO we take a different approach. We have designed our starter kits to look and feel as close to a real cigarette as possible, so no clouds of vapour filling the room and we have flavours that are as close to a cigarette taste as you can get. If you don't believe it just go to our testimonial page and see how SMOKO has helped even the most resistant of smokers.
In fact in the ASH survey a majority of ex-smokers said that vaping was now just as or even more satisfying then smoking!
"I don't want to substitute one addiction for another"
This is the strangest one on the list and shows how much misinformation is out there about e-cigarettes. Cigarettes are addictive for a number of reasons, including all the sugar in them, but the main reason cigarettes keep people coming back is the nicotine. That is what your body craves and the lack of it is what causes you to become irritable and jittery when you run out of cigarettes. Nicotine is the main ingredient that your body wants, and it can get that quite happily from e-cigarettes.
E-cigarettes after all only contain nicotine and three other ingredients (to create the flavour and the vapour), so you still get what your body is craving but without the 50 extra carcinogens and toxins found in cigarettes. That's why we call it making the switch, as you are not starting a new addiction, you are switching to a much healthier (and cheaper) version of what you are doing now. Public Health England verified this saying that e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful then cigarettes.
"I am concerned they are not safe enough"
This was the most common answer when smokers were asked why they hadn't tried e-cigarettes, with 27% of smokers worried about the safety of e-cigarettes. This can be attributed to a couple of things but like the confusion with swapping addictions it can be mostly be blamed on misinformation. The first aspect is the idea that e-cigarettes are just as bad or worse than cigarettes, which is categorically not true. As mentioned above, e-cigarettes are much better for you than cigarettes, have none of the toxins or carcinogens of cigarettes and don't even produce smoke so issues like 2nd and 3rd hand smoke are not an issue.
There was a scare recently where a variety of e-liquids were heated way over what the liquids should be heated to and some were found to contain diacetyl, a toxin. The good news is that this was only found in the cheapest, Chinese made liquids as it is a very cheap way to create e-liquids, and SMOKO has all of its liquids made in the UK. That means that we have pharmaceutical-grade ingredients and are guaranteed not to have anything in there but nicotine and flavourings.
The other worry smokers have about the safety of e-cigarettes are the batteries, specifically them exploding. Videos of batteries exploding in pockets can be found on the internet, but the truth is that e-cigarette batteries are just that, batteries. They are the same design as the batteries you have in your phone or your laptop, and just like your phone or laptop if you don't treat them properly then you can break them. Public Health England looked into this issue as well, and rated the danger as the same as any other battery. All you have to do to be safe is follow some simple guidelines, use the charger provided with the battery, don't pierce or break the battery and don't leave them near a fire or other hot place.
The even better news is that with the introduction of the TPD all of these issues will be gotten rid of anyway. The TPD is a new set of EU laws that will among other things regulate what can and cannot be in e-liquid, and will enforce the same standard on e-cigarette batteries as any other battery. If you avoid the Chinese brands and buy from a brand that makes all its liquid in the UK and is TPD complaint (like us) then there is nothing to worry about.
If you are one of those smokers then who was still unsure check out our New SMOKO VAPE POD Starter Kit and see if you can make the switch to a healthier life.