The research quizzed more than 26,000 year 10 students from across the country on their smoking and vaping habits.

Vaping may not be the gateway to cigarette smoking as was once feared, according to New Zealand's largest smoking survey.

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) canvassed more than 26,000 Year 10 students from across the country and found that only 2 per cent used electronic cigarettes, also known as vaporisers, daily.

While that figure had risen from 1 per cent in 2015, the study's manager said there was good reason for that.

"E-cigarette use by Year 10 students is increasing, but slowly and [it is] largely confined to students who already smoke," said Boyd Broughton from ASH.

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The research found less than 1 per cent of daily vapers were people who had never smoked cigarettes before.

Joseph Johnson Electronic cigarettes may or may not contain nicotine, and are generally regarded to pose a small fraction of the risks of smoking.

Whereas students who already smoked daily were more than 25 times more likely to use e-cigarettes every day than their non-smoking peers.

"There is a huge moral panic about young people taking up vaping, and even going on to smoke. These results don't support that at all," Broughton said.

"Never smokers might try a puff on a friend's e-cigarette, but they are very unlikely to become a daily user."

Daily smokers were most likely to have tried vaping, the survey found, with over 90 per cent having tried an e-cigarette.

Meanwhile, the number of Year 10 pupils who said they were regular or daily cigarette smokers has dropped from about 25 percent in 2001, to about 5 per cent in 2017.

"Young people take risks, and whilst we can never stop experimentation altogether, trying an e-cigarette is a much better option that trying a cigarette, and one that appears less likely to lead to smoking."

The survey, called the 2017 ASH Year 10 Snapshot, is an annual look into young people's smoking habits and receives funding from the Ministry of Health.

"The fact that over 90 per cent of Year 10 smokers have tried vaping is actually quite encouraging, and it would appear that much like adult smokers, teen smokers appear to be looking for a way out of tobacco and e-cigarettes may well be an option for them," Broughton said.

"However, vaping by young people must be continuously monitored with the focus remaining on less young people smoking," he added.

One 15-year-old Auckland high school student said he had never tried vaping or cigarettes, nor did he want to.

"Putting unnatural things in your lungs doesn't seem very good," he said.

While he's never vaped before, he said some of his friends had, and occasionally he'd walk into the school bathrooms to the lingering, unmistakable smell of sweet vape smoke in the air.

"I think they think they're cool, it's not really something that they actually like."

Smoking is forbidden at his school, as it at many schools, but many school rules don't specifically cover the use of e-cigarettes.

Broughton said this was often the case with the relatively new technology.

"[E-cigarettes] are currently in regulatory limbo with regard to what goes into them, how they are sold and where they can be used."

He said e-cigarettes may or may not contain nicotine, and were generally regarded to pose a small fraction of the risks of smoking.