Mark Twain, so the story goes, used to joke that giving up smoking was the easiest thing in the world – after all, he had done it “thousands of times”.

The US novelist, though, did not have the option of e-cigarettes – the quitting phenomenon that started in the US and is now a rapidly growing business here with its own “cloud-chasing” subculture . UK sales of vaping products surged 50% last year to reach £1bn, and are on course to exceed £2bn by 2020.

It is 10 years ago this weekend that laws came into effect banning smoking in virtually all enclosed public places in England. According to Cancer Research UK there are now 1.9 million fewer smokers in Britain compared with when the smoking ban was introduced – the lowest smoking rates ever recorded in Britain. But nearly 3 million Britons are now vaping.

“More and more smokers realise that e-cigarettes are so close to the experience they’re used to that they can almost effortlessly shift across” said Shane MacGuill, tobacco analyst at Euromonitor, the research firm that compiled the sales data.

“They often see it less as a substitution and more as a guilt-free way to carry on consuming nicotine,” he said.

Software sales director Gary Stevenson, 44, is a prime example. He has been vaping for two years and admits he is probably taking in more nicotine now than when he smoked.

“I’ll be at work – reading my emails or on the phone – and I instinctively grab for my vape, have a chonk on it – then put it down,” he said. “I don’t know whether it’s an addiction or a reaction, but I graze on it all the time.”

Stevenson used to smoke about 10 cigarettes a day and saw himself primarily as a “social smoker”. But the perceived harmlessness of vaping has turned a habit he used to fear (“every time I put a cigarette in my mouth I imagined I was going to die of cancer the next day”) into a habit he is happy to indulge.

“If I go out for a drink, I might get a hangover the next day but I don’t get a ‘cigarette hangover’. There’s none of the physical downside you get from smoking, so there’s no ‘oh God, I’ve got to stop smoking’ moment.”



Stevenson opts for a nicotine strength of 3 milligrams (per ml) but has no intention of lowering it to zero, much less of giving up. And he is not alone.

Across the country, trendy shops and cafes are opening where “cloud chasers” – a new tribe of unashamed vape addicts – are encouraged to hang out, drink coffee and listen to music.

“It’s a subculture coming out of America – with particular types of music and clothes – and that’s now part of the incentive to stop smoking cigarettes,” said MacGuill.

A woman smokes an e-cigarette at a vaping expo in St Petersburg, one of many held around the world. Photograph: Sergei Konkov/TASS

At Vapour Evolution in Brighton, for example, on upmarket Duke Street, there is a tasting bar where punters try out new flavours and e-liquids. Vapers can buy trendy items of clothing like baseball caps and T-shirts, and upstairs theres a Cloud cafe.

“We do coffees, juices, smoothies – we try to offer a bit more of a sit-down experience,” said its manager, Andrew Kinghorn. “There’s music, coil building sessions (making your own heating elements) and competitions to see who can blow the biggest cloud.”

Kinghorn says one of the newest trends is for a more bespoke vaping experience, where you drip the e-liquid yourself and tailor the flavour and vapour to exactly how you want it.



“There’s a skill to it, and it’s not for everyone, but the flavour is really incredible,” he said.

Surprisingly, and with an endless stream of novelty flavours – from strawberry milkshake to sugar-cured bacon – it seems non-smokers are getting tempted, too.



“If non-smokers come into our shop, I’ll ask them, why would you want to start using a device that’s going to give you a nicotine addition? But I can’t make someone’s decision for them – if they want to buy something, that’s up to them,” said Kinghorn.

The public health charity Ash claims only a tiny proportion of British vapers are non-smokers – about 0.2%. But MacGuill says that percentage could rise significantly over the longer term.

“Think about it logically. If you have people who’ve been interested in smoking but have chosen not to do it for health reasons, if they’re then presented with a means of doing it in a way that’s not harmful, it stands to reason more will want to try it,” he said.



MacGuill adds that the value of the market is likely to increase over the next five years, especially with big tobacco companies investing heavily behind the scenes.



“There’s a basic understanding inside the industry that it’s a better business model to sell a product that doesn’t kill 50% of your consumers”, he said.

“They [the tobacco companies] recognise the tide is going out on combustible cigarettes, so different delivery systems for nicotine are a huge opportunity.”

Is vaping safe?

The Vapour Place in Bristol. There are now about 1,700 vape shops in the UK. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Last year about 2.9 million people in the UK were thought to use electronic cigarettes – but their impact on health has been the topic of controversy, with concerns ranging from the health impact of the technology to whether it can help smokers quit conventional cigarettes and if it encourages others to take up conventional smoking.



The latest Cochrane review of the best available evidence, published last September, found there was no evidence of serious side-effects from using e-cigarettes over a two-year period.

A paper published the same month in the British Medical Journal estimated that in 2015 alone, the devices helped 18,000 smokers to kick the habit who would otherwise not have done so. However, the authors pointed out that the devices are not linked to a greater rate of attempts to quit, just more success among those that try.

The latest figures from the UK’s Office for National Statistics reveal that about a million e-cigarette users in the UK say they are using the devices to help them give up cigarettes.

A 2016 report from the Royal College of Physicians has also acknowledged the growing role of e-cigarettes in helping smokers quit. The report noted that “e-cigarettes are not currently made to medicines standards and are probably more hazardous than NRT [nicotine replacement therapy such as gum, patches or inhalators]”. But it also pointed out that “the hazard to health arising from long-term vapour inhalation from the e-cigarettes available today is unlikely to exceed 5% of the harm from smoking tobacco”.

The report added that while regulation of e-cigarettes was needed, the devices should be considered a valuable tool in helping smokers to quit, advising: “In the interests of public health it is important to promote the use of e-cigarettes, NRT and other non-tobacco nicotine products as widely as possible as a substitute for smoking in the UK.”

But not every health body believes e-cigarettes are a boon. A report from the World Health Organisation, published last year, raised a number of concerns, including that both users and those passively breathing in e-cigarette vapour could be at risk of adverse health effects.

The UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, however, criticised the WHO report, saying it had failed to quantify risk and concluded: “In terms of toxicology, the discussion is naive and places excessive emphasis on negligible risks arising from very low exposures.”

The centre also stressed that it was important to compare the safety of e-cigarettes with the health effects of traditional smoking, rather than to not smoking in any way at all. As the NHS website pointed out after news that mice exposed to e-cigarette vapour were found to have mild lung damage and other problems, “Are e-cigarettes safer than normal cigarettes? Almost certainly. Are they 100% safe? Probably not.”

By Nicola Davis