• Posted December 12, 2025

Smokers Who Vape More Likely To Quit Or Cut Back, Study Argues

Smokers who use cigarettes and vape devices interchangeably might not be doing themselves as much of a disservice as once feared, a new study says.

These "dual users" are more likely to eventually quit smoking than people who smoke without vaping, researchers reported Dec. 10 in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research.

Dual users also are more likely to reduce their cigarette smoking rate, and thus reduce the amount of harmful chemicals they inhale from smoke, researchers said.

"Smokers (and clinicians) sometimes believe that if smokers do not manage to stop smoking soon after starting vaping, they should stop using e-cigarettes to avoid ‘dual use,’ ” senior researcher Peter Hajek said in a news release. He’s director of the Health and Lifestyle Research Unit at Queen Mary University of London.

“These results show that dual use promotes genuine harm reduction and that it can be a useful step to stopping smoking altogether,” Hajek said.

There’s been much concern over dual use of cigarettes and vape devices. Opponents argue that this approach doesn’t address the nicotine addiction that drives smoking.

“Dual use is not an effective way to safeguard health,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says in its website on the subject.

For the new study, researchers analyzed data from a U.K.-funded trial involving 886 adult smokers who were offered e-cigarettes or nicotine replacement products as part of a quit-smoking campaign.

People who failed to quit but continued dual-using were nearly 4.5 times as likely to stop smoking by a month later, compared to those who stuck to cigarettes, results showed.

They also were 4.5 times as likely to have cut their amount of smoking in half by one year after their attempt to quit, researchers found.

Results also showed that:

• People who used e-cigarettes had fewer cravings than those on nicotine replacement.

• Most e-cigarette users reduced the level of nicotine in their vapes over time, with 1 in 10 shifting to nicotine-free vapes after a year.

• Tobacco-flavored vapes were unpopular and those stuck with tobacco vapes were less likely to remain smoke-free at one year.

Despite these findings, researchers emphasized that quitting completely is the best means of protecting your health.

“The sooner smokers quit the better, but for those who find it difficult to stop smoking abruptly, vaping can help with doing it gradually over time,” lead researcher Francesca Pesola, a senior lecturer in statistics at Queen Mary, said in a news release.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on dual use.

SOURCES: Queen Mary University of London, news release, Dec. 10, 2025; Nicotine & Tobacco Research, Dec. 10, 2025