Vapeboss – Many anti-vape advocates believe that vaping can act as a gateway to smoking. A study titled "Smoking Intention and Progression From E-Cigarette Use to Cigarette Smoking" claimed that e-cigarette use was associated with a higher risk of future smoking in adolescents who previously had no intention to smoke.

To this effect, the study aimed to measure the gateway effect by looking at the relationship between the prevalence of e-cigarette use among young adults and the prevalence of regular smoking, including among those who had never smoked. If a gateway effect did exist, population changes in the prevalence of smoking uptake should increase in parallel with vaping rates. In fact, the study authors found no statistically significant relationship between the prevalence of e-cigarette use and regular smoking among participants aged 16 to 24.

"These findings suggest that large gateway effects reported in previous studies can be ruled out, especially among those aged 18 to 24. However, we cannot rule out smaller gateway effects and we did not study younger age groups. If our estimates are correct, we would estimate that of the 74,000 e-cigarette users aged 16 to 17 in the UK, about 7,000 would become regular smokers as a result of e-cigarette use. At the same time, around 50,000 smokers are estimated to quit per year as a result of e-cigarette use," said the study's lead author, Dr. Emma Beard.

No Gateway Effect in Countries Where Vaping is Supported

In line with these findings, countries that have supported the use of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation, such as the UK and New Zealand, have not only reported low smoking rates but have also not seen an increase in youth vaping rates. Supporting reports from these countries and in line with previous research examining these patterns, a recent review titled "Does the gateway theory justify a nicotine vaping ban in Australia?" rejected the Gateway Theory once again.

Review authors Colin Mendelsohn and Wayne Hall have shown that a more plausible explanation for why adolescents who vape are more likely to smoke is personality factors. This means that these adolescent vapers are risk-takers and therefore also more likely to smoke, drink alcohol, use cannabis and other substances, and engage in unprotected sex.

Source: Vapingpost