Public Health England (PHE), which maintains that vaping is 95% less harmful than tobacco, is releasing a short video of an experiment which reveals the amount of sticky black tar that accumulates in the lungs of a heavy smoker, collected in a bell jar. By contrast, the same nicotine intake through vaping releases only a trace of residue.

 

“It would be tragic if thousands of smokers who could quit with the help of an e-cigarette are being put off due to false fears about safety,” said Prof John Newton, director of health improvement at PHE.

 

“We need to reassure smokers that switching to an e-cigarette would be much less harmful than smoking. This demonstration highlights the devastating harms caused by every cigarette and helps people see that vaping is likely to pose only a fraction of the risk.”

 

Research shows 44 per cent of smokers either wrongly believe vaping is as harmful as smoking or do not know that it poses much lower risks to health.

 

The film features health experts Dr Lion Shahab and Dr Rosemary Leonard carrying out an experiment to visually demonstrate the high levels of cancer-causing chemicals and tar inhaled by an average smoker over a month compared with not smoking or using an e-cigarette.

 

PHE says the risks from vaping are tiny compared to smoking.

 

 

Concern about e-cigarettes is high in the United States, where vaping has taken off among school students. Many use a small device called Juul, the size of a USB stick. Anti-tobacco campaigners are alarmed that e-cigarettes will be a “gateway” to smoking, and some studies suggest this could happen.