Bangladesh can reduce tobacco consumption up to 25 percent by switching to cigarettes smoking or vaping as an international study report suggested.

United States-based Consumer Choice Center conducted the survey on electronic cigarettes smoking in terms of health benefits, said a news releaseStudy looked at 61 countries around the world and compared the current rate of daily and occasional vapers. It used the United Kingdom’s progressive tobacco harm reduction policies as a reference point.

UK government has officially endorsed vaping as a harm reduction method, especially owing to Public Health of England’s ‘landmark review’ that found vaping to be 95 percent less harmful than combustible cigarettes.

As a result of this finding UK’s National Health Service recommends vaping to help quit smoking. Vape products are now also sold in shops in British hospitals.

“The liberalization of vaping has enormous potential and could help millions of people switch from traditional tobacco smoking to vaping – a safer and less harmful way of consumption of nicotine,” the Consumer Choice Center survey said.

Its assessment of 61 countries shines a light on how “smart tobacco harm reduction policies could make the switch easier.” Its estimation of potential switch from smoking to vaping found that countries with less than 1% vaping prevalence can reduce smoking by up to 25 percent.

Looking at the UK, the survey’s “reference point,” it notes that vaping, also known as e-cigarettes, are now the most popular stop smoking aid in England, with around 2.8 million vapers across the UK.Around 1 million of the population are smoking tobacco cigarettes and 1.5 million have stopped smoking. In addition, some 1.3 million former smokers use vaping including 440 thousand people who had been regular users of vapes.

This figures to a total of 2.8 million fewer smokers (a gross value excluding new smokers). This adds up to 2 million fewer smokers or a 25 percent reduction.

Assuming this can be replicated, the analysis estimates that countries with 1-2.99 percent vaping prevalence can reduce smoking by up to 12.5-25 percent and countries with 3-4.99 percent vaping prevalence can reduce smoking by up to 5-12.5 percent.

By this count, there could be an astounding number of smokers who can potentially switch to vaping and quit smoking. By the Consumer Choice Center’s calculations, China can potentially have over 76.5 million smokers switching to vaping.

According to the survey, the top 10 countries include Bangladesh where most switches can potentially take place with an estimated 6.23 million Bangladeshi smokers can quit smoking by switching to vaping!

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org