According to a new report from ASH (Action on Smoking and Health), the proportion of the adult population using e-cigarettes in the UK has increased to 8.3% this year, the highest proportion ever, reaching 4.3 million people, compared to 700,000 in 2012.
The report found that the majority of current e-cigarette users are ex-smokers (57%), with this percentage peaking at 64% in 2021. Only 1.3 percent of never-smokers are currently e-cigarette users, accounting for 8.1 percent of e-cigarette users.
The report also highlights that the percentage of adult smokers who have never tried e-cigarettes continues to slowly decline, dropping to 28 percent by 2022. The proportion of current smokers using e-cigarettes increases from 2021 (17 percent) to 2022 (22 percent) .
As in previous years, the primary reason given by former smokers for using e-cigarettes was to help them quit (29%). The second most common reason was to prevent relapse (19%), the third was that they enjoyed the experience (14%), and the fourth reason was to save money (11%).
The main reasons current smokers gave for using e-cigarettes were to reduce smoking (17%), save money (16%), try to help them quit (14%), and prevent relapse (13%).
It is worth noting that the most common type of e-cigarette in the UK today remains the refillable open-ended device, with 65% of e-cigarette users currently saying that open-ended e-cigarettes are their primary device.
Refillable e-cigarettes and disposable e-cigarettes are the primary device type for 17% and 15% of e-cigarette users, respectively.
