The electronic cigarette (als known as e-cigarette or e-cig) sector is proving to be fruitful – and profitable – ground for startups. Numbers are on the rise across the globe. ECigIntelligence, a sector publication, estimated that in 2014 there are around 1.5million regular vapers in the UK alone, with around one million who vape less regularly (according to the 2014 market statistics, the latest available). This is out of a total smoking population of around 10 million.

These numbers are supported by newly published research from the European Commission – the executive body of the EU.In its most recent Eurobarometer survey on European attitudes towards tobacco and e-cigarettes, it found that 12% of EU consumers (out of an estimated population of 503 million) had tried an e-cigarette with 2% using them regularly.

And although e-cigarette firms are prohibited from marketing their products as aids to smoking cessation, this is proving to be a driving factor amongst consumers – with some success. 24% of people in Ireland reported successfully stopping smoking with the help of e-cigarettes, with high rates also reported in the UK (21%) and Latvia (18%).

“Overall, at least one in ten in 19 Member States say e-cigarettes helped them stop smoking tobacco completely,” the report said.

But critics say that e-cigarettes would be a self-defeating business if they were really concerned with weaning people off nicotine altogether. Equally – they say – e-cigarettes ‘glamourise’ the act of smoking and could act as a gateway to tobacco use later on – particularly for younger adapters.

Neither of these arguments is completely true. Almost all e-liquid (the liquid which e-cigarettes use to produce vapour) manufacturers produce e-liquids with varying strengths of nicotine. This – in theory – means that former smokers should be able to slowly move down in nicotine strengths over time before eventually vaping with nicotine-free e-liquid or ceasing altogether.

Industry talk about this has died down over the past year – according to a UK e-cig executive that asked not to be named – and the more cynical could see a business strategy in providing a wide variety of flavours at the zero-nicotine level to keep vapers interested.

But even if that is not the case and most of the industry wants vapers to eventually put down their e-cigs, it should not be of too great a concern, the executive adds. There is a significant amount of time before the entirety of the smoking population switches to e-cigs, the exec says (approximately 85% of UK smokers are not currently regularly using e-cigs for example) and it is not a factor that has impacted the viability, sales or profits of producers of approved nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products, which are meant to eliminate nicotine dependence and cease to be used.

Meanwhile the idea that e-cigarettes can act as a gateway product to later tobacco use is questionable at best. Gateway theory has been roundly debunked for its use in a wide variety of other areas – most notably marijuana as a gateway into heavier drugs.

The numbers in the Eurobarometer survey do not support the idea either. Less than 1% of never-smokers in any country currently use e-cigarettes and only 2% across the EU have ever tried one. Some U.S. youth tobacco use survey have reported high uptake of e-cigs amongst American high-school students. Part of this can be ascribed to experimentation amongst youth that is likely to have happened anyway (conventional tobacco use continues to decline, although overall nicotine numbers are staying constant) but going through the various issues around this would take another entire article.

Either way, many in the e-cig industry want to move e-cigarettes away from any association with conventional cigarettes – including ceasing to call e-cigarettes by that name in favour of something like vape pen, moving the industry from cigalike products to tank products (next generation e-cigs with better performance that are significantly larger than conventional rolled cigarettes), making products that no longer resemble combustible cigarettes and ridding the sector of the influence of Big Tobacco (admittedly impossible and not necessarily the best thing to do anyway).

As the sector advances and e-cigarettes continue to grow in design and capability, more and more startups will start to look at these options.

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