Vaping was supposed to get people off smoking. Now e-cig users are switching to cigarettes to try to quit

More than 60 years after the U.S. Surgeon General released its landmark report on the dangers of smoking, a new breed of “cigfluencers” has emerged in popular culture of celebrities puffing cigarettes in paparazzi photos. While some speculate whether smoking is actually making a comeback, other public health experts are noticing a more worrisome trend in people’s relationship with cigarettes.

Emerging research shows that more individuals are switching from vaping back to combustible cigarettes, a reversal of a pattern of e-cigarettes being used as a tool to quit. An Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)-commissioned survey by Talbot Mills Research found that of 623 current smokers and 1,070 former smokers in New Zealand, 14% reported using smoking to quit vaping. In a separate ASH survey of 940 adults in the UK, 19% said they’ve tried to quit vaping using cigarettes as a quitting aid, the second most popular strategy to quit vaping.

To be sure, cigarette smoking rates have plummeted since public health advocates began publicizing its harms, with only 9.1% of American adults smoking cigarettes as of 2025 compared with 42.4% in 1965, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. Meanwhile, about 7% of American adults vape. But these trends of a shift from vaping to smoking as a cessation tool are less about changes in smoking prevalence, and more about a public health messaging failure that could have lasting consequences, experts warn.

“This is not just a trivial misunderstanding,” ASH........

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