FEATURE
RESEARCHERS HOPE TO UNCOVER NEW FINDINGS ON THE HABITS OF
PEOPLE WHO DUAL USE COMBUSTIBLE AND E-CIGARETTES
By Leo Forfar
The acceptance and advancement of vaping have been
somewhat hamstrung for advocates in and out of the
industry due to a lack of published research.
A recent surge of promising studies from places such as
Public Health England have provided advocates with a
much-needed body of knowledge to draw upon for greater
mainstream and political support. But it can take time for
newly drafted evidence to translate into action.
One of the overlooked sub-categories for inquiry has been
dual use – the phenomenon of using an e-cigarette whilst
still smoking, often in the hope that the former can override
one’s addiction to the latter. E-cigarettes alone provide the
throat hit a smoker is used to while adding the option to
reduce nicotine, eventually phasing it out altogether.
Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry
of the Queen Mary University of London, have announced
their intention to conduct a new study investigating the
habits and health of people who dual use electronic and
combustible cigarettes.
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The chief investigator of this study is Professor Peter
Hajek of the Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at the
Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine within the London
School of Medicine and Dentistry. Professor Hajek is also
a professor of clinical psychology and head of psychology
at the institute, having spent years studying the behaviours
that initiate and sustain smoking addiction. He co-authored
the landmark PHE evidence review on e-cigarettes in 2015
and testified to the UK Science and Technology Select
Committee earlier this year. Now he looks set to lend his
name to another influential piece of scholarship.
We asked the professor about the reasons motivating this
work and he said:
“Some studies of dual users already exist, but relatively little
is known about the typical trajectory of this. For instance,
what proportion of dual users eventually stop smoking
and/or stop vaping and which factors contribute to these
outcomes. For example, the nicotine intake in dual users,
or whether dual users feel more dependent on smoking or
on vaping.”