Could vaping save one billion lives?

The Reason Foundation states:

Vaping is displacing smoking and has the potential to improve and extend the lives of “hundreds of millions” of people, according to a new Reason Foundation working paper that compares the health effects of vaping to smoking, examines the rate at which adult smokers have been switching to vaping and assesses the effect the availability of vape products has on rates of smoking.

“If product quality and diversity continue to increase, and costs continue to fall, within 20 years vaping could cut smoking rates by 50 percent or more. In 30 years, vaping might eliminate smoking altogether. If that were to happen, it would effectively save most of the billion lives – and perhaps eight of the 10 billion life-years – that might otherwise be lost to smoking,” the Reason Foundation working paper, The Vapour Revolution: How Bottom-Up Innovation Is Saving Lives, concludes.

Thank goodness the Government is finally moving to legalise the sale of nicotine for vaping in New Zealand. It should of course be regulated as it is not risk free, but the potential for it to do much reduced harm compared to smoking is immense.