This is only half the question. The rest should read ‘compared to cigarettes?’
When you compare using e-cigarettes or vaping products to smoking tobacco cigarettes, the science is clear: e-cigarettes or vapes are much safer.
Setting fire to any tobacco product, whether cigarettes, pipes or cigars, releases thousands of toxins. Many of these toxins cause cancer. It is the combustion (burning) which produces and releases these toxins. This is what makes tobacco products so dangerous. There are products now available that enable people to use nicotine without burning tobacco, and which are therefore significantly safer than smoking.
Vapes work by heating and vapourising nicotine liquid and involve no combustion. While not risk-free, vapes are much, much less dangerous than smoking. There is a lot of independent scientific evidence to support this. In 2015, Public Health England (PHE), now called the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), an agency of the UK’s Department of Health, published a landmark review into the safety and harm reduction potential of vaping. It concluded that “best estimates show e-cigarettes are 95 per cent less harmful to your health than normal cigarettes”. (1)
PHE, and then OHID, undertook seven further reviews. The eighth and final publication concluded in 2022 that “in the short and medium term, vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking”, and that there is “significantly lower exposure to harmful substances from vaping compared with smoking, as shown by biomarkers associated with the risk of cancer, respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.” (2)
Crucially, as well as being safer than cigarettes, nicotine vapes are also proven to help people quit smoking. Cochrane is a global, independent, non-profit network of health researchers and professionals who produce high-quality health information to improve healthcare worldwide. Their systematic reviews of randomised controlled trials are considered gold standard. In 2025, Cochrane’s latest review of vaping for smoking cessation concluded that “nicotine e-cigarettes can help people to stop smoking for at least six months. Evidence shows they work better than nicotine replacement therapy.”(3)
Unfortunately, widespread misperceptions about nicotine vapes mean that many people are unable to accurately assess the risks they pose in comparison to continued smoking. This is a barrier to reducing smoking and smoking-related harm, as it prevents people from switching away from combustible tobacco to a much safer product.
(1) McNeill, A., Brose, L.S., Calder, R.I., Hitchman, S.C.B., Hajek, P. and McRobbie, H. (2015) E-cigarettes: an evidence update: a report commissioned by Public Health England. London: Public Health England.
(2) Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (2022) Nicotine vaping in England: 2022 evidence update: main findings. London: Department of Health and Social Care.
(3) Lindson N, Livingstone-Banks J, Butler AR, McRobbie H, Bullen CR, Hajek P, Wu AD, Begh R, Theodoulou A, Notley C, Rigotti NA, Turner T, Fanshawe T, Hartmann-Boyce J. Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2025, Issue 11. Art. No.: CD010216. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD010216.pub10.