E-cigarette advertising triggers urge to smoke

Television advertisements for e-cigarettes may be enticing current and even former tobacco smokers to reach for another cigarette, new research reveals.

People who smoke tobacco cigarettes daily and who watched e-cigarette advertisements with someone inhaling (or vaping) or holding an e-cigarette showed a greater urge to smoke than regular smokers who did not see the vaping.

After watching e-cigarette advertisements with vaping, former smokers feel less confident that they could refrain from smoking tobacco cigarettes than former smokers seeing e-cigarette ads without vaping.

"We know that exposure to smoking cues such as visual depictions of cigarettes, ashtrays, matches, lighters and smoke heightens smokers' urge to smoke a cigarette, and decreases former smokers' confidence in their ability to refrain from smoking a cigarette," said Erin K. Maloney from the University of Pennsylvania.

The researchers studied more than 800 daily, intermittent, and former smokers who watched e-cigarette advertising, and who then took a survey to determine smoking urges, intentions and behaviours.

Over 35 percent of the daily smokers who were showed vaping reported having a tobacco cigarette during the study against 22 percent of daily smokers who saw ads without vaping, and about 23 percent of daily smokers who did not see any advertising.

"These findings are especially relevant to ongoing health and policy discussions, as they indicate that it is not just the health impact of e-cigarettes and vaping themselves that must be considered," co-author Teresa Thompson from University of Dayton said.

The study appeared in the journal Health Communication.