Research finds no link between vaping and future smoking for young people

Rachna Begh, Monserrat Conde, Thomas R. Fanshawe, Dylan Kneale, Lion Shahab, Sufen Zhu, Michael Pesko, Jonathan Livingstone-Banks, Nicola Lindson, Nancy A. Rigotti, Kate Tudor, Dimitra Kale, Sarah E. Jackson, Karen Rees, Jamie Hartmann-Boyce

US researchers reviewed 126 studies with over 4 million participants under the age of 29 in the US, Canada and Western Europe and found 'very low-certainty evidence' to support the common belief that nicotine vaping acts as a gateway to cigarette smoking for young people.

According to the authors the results suggest "an inverse relationship between EC use or availability and smoking in young people - in other words, as ECs become more available and their use in young people increases, smoking rates decrease more than would have been expected otherwise. Similarly, as ECs become less available and their use in young people declines, smoking rates are higher than would have been expected otherwise. This evidence is consistent with more young people never starting to smoke to begin with, or quitting smoking, as a result of ECs rather than initiating via a gateway-style relationship, at this point in time."

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