Research: Flavoured Vapes Help Quitting

According to The Canadian Vaping Association, “the study highlights evidence suggesting that e-liquid flavours, other than tobacco, mint, and menthol, play an important role in the initiation, maintenance, acceptability, appeal, and satisfaction of vaping. 

“The study also found that adults specifically seeking to quit smoking showed a strong preference for flavoured vapes that would be restricted under the current proposal by Health Canada’s flavour ban policy and already implemented by select provinces and territories.”

The Association says that these findings emphasise the importance of understanding the role of flavoured vapes in helping adults increase their chances to quit smoking.

The report concluded: “Overall, we found that most of the adults who attempted to quit smoking and used an [vape] were using a variety of flavours that would be restricted under the Health Canada vaping flavour ban policy. Careful consideration should be given to the effects of policies that would ban appealing flavoured [vape] products from the market. Prospective research studies are needed to examine the role of flavours specially for smoking cessation purposes.”

The Canadian Vaping Association says that the survey strongly recommends that public health authorities and governments avoid implementing policies that ban flavoured NVP products, citing the need for further research into the role of flavours, particularly in supporting smoking cessation efforts.

Sam Tam, President of the Canadian Vaping Association, said: “Today, there are 1.9 million Canadian adults that are vaping instead of smoking, with 90% relying on flavours beyond tobacco, mint and menthol. It is important to keep as many Canadians as possible from returning to cigarettes so Canada can meet its goal of a less than 5% smoking rate by 2035.

“We must stop the misinformation that flavour bans are the only solution to stop youth from vaping, when this product is age restricted to adults. We need stronger enforcement to raise the level of compliance, not bans. Reducing smoking rates in Canada must remain a top public health priority, as this study demonstrates. If achieving this means adopting less harmful alternatives like nicotine vaping products, we must be truthful to Canadians that it's better for them to vape than to smoke.”

References:

• Use of nicotine vaping products during an attempt to quit smoking by Canadian adults who smoke or recently quit: findings from the 2022 Canada International Tobacco Control Four Country Smoking and Vaping Survey - https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/reports-publications/health-promotion-chronic-disease-prevention-canada-research-policy-practice/vol-45-no-1-2025/nicotine-vaping-products-during-attempt-quit-smoking-adults-findings-survey.html

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

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Dave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.