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While the Government is feeling positive about the chances of reaching its smoke free 2050 target for NZ, this could be at the cost of an increase in vaping.
And, according to one local vaper, getting off nicotine vapes can be even harder than quitting smoking.
For many adults, vaping has been used to quit smoking. This meant switching from cigarettes to vapes that contain nicotine.
When it comes to known and well-proven impacts on health, this is seen as a definite positive – people smoke cigarettes for the nicotine but can die from diseases caused by the smoke from burning tobacco, which of course is not present in vapes. Tobacco use and breathing in other people’s smoke (second-hand smoke) causes about 5000 deaths every year in NZ, including one in four cancer deaths as well as stroke and heart disease. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in this country.
However, while getting off smoking is a win for your health, what happens when you try to quit vaping? In this respect, the key factor is the highly addictive substance, nicotine, and how much of it is in your chosen vape product.
Gulf Harbour resident Angela Gallagher successfully used vaping to get off a heavy and long- term smoking habit. Her current challenge is getting off vapes.
After smoking since she was around 14 years old, five years ago (now in her 40s) she made the change to vaping for health reasons and not on a doctor’s prescription.
“It took me about three weeks to get used to the vape which caught in my throat and made me thirsty. I also didn’t like the sound, or the way it looked compared with smoking. I had tried patches and other methods to get off smoking but none of that had worked long term. But with vaping as long as there was a good level of nicotine I had no cravings for cigarettes. And it was a lot cheaper than smoking.”
She no longer smokes, but Angela says getting off vapes, a process she began a month ago, has been just as hard, if not harder. This is because although there are vapes that contain little or no nicotine, Angela found she needed a high level of nicotine in order to quit smoking.
She wants to quit vaping because she is unsure what the health implications are.
“My mother has emphysema and I’ve been feeling out of breath and worried that vaping might be affecting my breathing,” she says.
Angela reduced the amount of nicotine in her vapes but found that she just vaped more so went to the doctor for help.
She has been taking Zyban prescribed by her doctor which reduces withdrawal symptoms, but Angela says she cannot use the drug for more than a few months.
“It is working, but it doesn’t work for everyone,” she says. “Even so, getting off vaping was hard. I was still thinking I should be vaping and I was getting an anxious feeling. The first week was very difficult.”
Having vaped, Angela says she would recommend that anyone who wants to quit smoking should try to do it without the intermediate step of vaping.
“It’s just as hard to get off the vaping as cigarettes and really you’re only prolonging the nicotine addiction.”
Local Dr Peter Hall says nicotine hits the brain in about 10 seconds when inhaled.
“This can make vaping as addictive as smoking, though it avoids the thousands of other toxic substances which are found in cigarettes,” he says. “The safer option for nicotine replacement is by slow absorption methods such as lozenges, gum and patches, which are available on prescription or directly from your chemist.”
Earlier this month, Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall announced changes to the law mainly focused on reducing the number of young people who are taking up vaping having never smoked. It also removes single use vapes.
In announcing the changes, the Minister said: “We recognise we need to strike a balance between preventing young people from starting to vape, at the same time as having vapes available as a cessation tool for those who genuinely want to give up smoking.”
She said vaping has played an important role in the record reduction of smoking over the last few years.
“New Zealand’s smoking rate is half the rate of what it was 10 years ago, with the number of people smoking falling by 56,000 in the past year. We’re creating a future where tobacco products are no longer addictive, appealing or as readily available, and the same needs to apply to vaping.”
Recent health surveys show that while smoking rates go down, vaping rates are on the rise.
The NZ Health Survey, released in November 2022, showed that daily smoking rates have continued to decrease, down to 8 percent from 9.4 percent the year before, At the same time, 8.3 percent of adults were daily vape or e-cigarette users in 2021/22, up from 6.2 percent the previous year.
