Vaping Saves Lives – World Vape Day 2025

The annual celebration of World Vape Day takes place on Friday, May 30, 2025.  The theme this year is, “20 Years of Facts-Vaping Works!” This is very fitting as governments and organizations around the world, including, shamefully, the World Health Organization (WHO), have gone to great lengths to spread false narratives about vaping in an attempt to discredit any of the benefits, of which there are many.

Vaping is a far less harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes, which contain thousands of toxic chemicals. Tobacco harm reduction (THR) isn’t a new concept. In 1976, famed tobacco researcher Michael Russel remarked, “people smoke for the nicotine, but die from the tar.” A conventional cigarette contains more than 600 ingredients and, when burned, releases more than 7,000 chemicals, including arsenic, formaldehyde, lead, and tar. Traditional cigarette use is associated with cancer, heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. More than 490,000 Americans die from tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke every year. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), tobacco product use remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States.

For decades, THR innovation has brought vaping products to market that have helped adult smokers quit, significantly reducing smoking-related deaths. E-cigarettes and vaping products are less dangerous alternatives that release nicotine without the harmful effects of traditional cigarettes. The American Lung Association reports that smoking rates have fallen 73% among adults since 1965, reaching 11.6% in 2022. Even though cigarette smoking among adults has declined over the past decades, the CDC neglects to acknowledge the benefits that THR has on the overall smoking rate in the U.S. In fact, it has arguably spread confusion and doubt of its own towards the products.  

The WHO has estimated that tobacco use is responsible for 16% of all deaths in adults over 30 in the European Region. In 2015, Public Health England found e-cigarettes to be at least 95 percent less harmful than combustible cigarettes. In 2021, the agency reported that “vaping is positively associated with quitting smoking successfully,” and it concluded a series of eight reports into e-cigarettes in 2022 by confirming that its previous estimates were “broadly accurate.” Yet the WHO won’t acknowledge that THR products have helped millions of adults quit smoking. If the goal of the WHO is to improve public health, then vaping products that aid adults in smoking cessation should be a cornerstone of any tobacco harm reduction approach. Instead, the WHO has taken an opposite approach in supporting bans on e-cigarettes and vaping products.

Banning vaping products opens the floodgates to the black market, where unregulated products are bought and sold, putting consumers at risk. The demand for vaping products doesn’t subside when a government institutes an outright ban. The U.S. discovered this during the failed Prohibition attempt from 1920 to 1933. The ban on alcohol ultimately led to more crime, corruption, and a dangerous black market for alcohol, which resulted in thousands of deaths. This failure is now being replicated and applied to vaping products.

Vaping products are a less harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes, and on World Vape Day, governments around the world must acknowledge the success vaping has had in adult smoking cessation. Policymakers should avoid implementing harmful regulations, taxes, and outright prohibition on tobacco harm reduction products like e-cigarettes. Instead, policymakers should use science-based evidence to support their policy decisions, creating an environment where regulated vaping products are accessible for adults wanting to quit smoking traditional cigarettes.