The key role of vaping in medical practice. Time for doctors to get on board.

Smoking cessation is a core responsibility of medical practice, however traditional treatments have low long-term success rates. Tobacco harm reduction with safer nicotine products such as vaping nicotine is an additional, evidence-based tool for helping smokers quit and often works where other treatments have failed. However, doctors have been slow to embrace vaping and many remain misinformed about it and about the safety of nicotine. Medical practitioners have a duty of care to provide the best possible management at each patient encounter. Withholding a legitimate treatment option that could prevent a life-threatening illness is a breach of that obligation. This is especially important in disadvantaged populations for whom smoking is a major cause of health and financial inequalities. Vaping may have a special role in this population that is currently being left behind as we hasten slowly toward the endgame.