Is there a vape to help stop smoking?

First, we need to understand why it is so hard to quit smoking. Nicotine is the "main culprit" of smoking addiction and the difficulty of quitting, and it is highly addictive. Among the 20 drugs, nicotine is the third most addictive, after morphine and heroin.

Smoking is the most effective way to ingest nicotine and produce a psychoactive effect. Nicotine is absorbed into the lungs and rapidly passes through the alveolar membrane into the bloodstream of the pulmonary capillaries and reaches the brain within seconds, stimulating the production of large amounts of dopamine and producing a feeling of "comfort". This absorption maximizes the psychoactive effects of nicotine, which can easily lead to addiction.

One of the first-line smoking cessation drugs recommended by current clinical smoking cessation guidelines is nicotine replacement therapy drugs (NRT, including five dosage forms: patch, chewing gum, inhaler, oral tablet, and nasal spray), whose nicotine intake is absorbed through the skin, oral mucosa, and nasal mucosa, unlike smoking, which can rapidly increase the concentration of nicotine in the blood and brain, and therefore have relatively low addictive properties, and are only used as an aid to quit smoking.

It is only used as an aid to quit smoking to relieve the withdrawal syndrome caused by the decrease of nicotine level in the body after quitting, such as irritability, anxiety, depression, fidgeting, lack of concentration, panic, insomnia, etc.

Because vape do not change the way nicotine enters the body, they are still theoretically addictive and have the potential risk of creating dependence leading to long-term use, while the health consequences of long-term vape use are unclear.

Although some studies have suggested that vape can be more effective in aiding smoking cessation compared to placebo or NRT, the design of such clinical studies is flawed, such as determining smoking cessation only through smokers' self-reporting and no objective testing verification, while some studies have found that vape is not better than NRT for smoking cessation, and there are still fewer large randomized controlled clinical trials with more rigorous designs.

2019 A randomized controlled clinical trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine is the only study to date with a rigorous design, large sample size, and confirmation that vape is better than NRT for smoking cessation. However, the study included only the UK population, which has led to increased acceptance of vape cessation among UK smokers given the UK government's supportive attitude towards vape in recent years.

The study also showed that smokers who used vape generally had better adherence to treatment, and nearly 40% of the subjects in this group had used vape for ≥1 year. However, the study did not examine whether those who successfully quit smoking with vape were already addicted to vape and needed to use it for life.

Therefore, more large randomized controlled clinical trials are needed to further evaluate the effectiveness and safety of vape assisted smoking cessation. However, some experts believe that for smokers who cannot quit or do not want to quit, switching from smoking cigarettes to vape may also be considered a harm reduction option.

However, further research is needed to determine how much harm can be reduced by using a vape over smoking cigarettes.

Focol has low nicotine and free nicotine vapes for you to choose from.