Vaping - using e-cigarettes to quit smoking
An electronic cigarette, e-cigarette, e-cig or vape is a device that allows you to inhale nicotine in a vapour rather than in the tobacco smoke of a cigarette. Using an e-cigarette is known as vaping.
Thurrock Healthy Lifestyle Service can support you if you wish to vape as your way to stop smoking. This includes supporting adults to take part in a national scheme called 'Swap to Stop'. This scheme gives adult smokers the opportunity to swap cigarettes for a free vape kit and get support from a Stop Smoking Adviser for up to 12 weeks.
To read about the Swap to Stop scheme launch in 2023, go to GOV.UK: Smokers urged to swap cigarettes for vapes in world first scheme.
Vaping risks
E-cigarettes are not completely risk-free, but experts estimate that vaping is at least 95% less harmful than smoking cigarettes. E-cigarette vapour contains some potentially harmful chemicals also found in tobacco smoke, but at much lower levels.
Many people think nicotine is very harmful to health. In fact, although it is addictive, nicotine is relatively harmless: it's the thousands of other chemicals in tobacco smoke that cause almost all the harm from smoking.
You can find out more about e-cigarettes and find answers to questions – including safety for users and bystanders, using e-cigarettes while pregnant, and how e-cigarettes are regulated in the UK – at NHS: using e-cigarettes to stop smoking.