VApril is coming!

THE vaping industry is set to launch its first ever awareness month in April across the UK.

Organized by the Vaping Industry Association, VApril hopes to urge smokers to switch to e-cigarettes for the month to show them it is a healthier choice

Following in the footsteps of Stoptober, the NHS’s stop smoking challenge six months earlier, the awareness campaign will engage with the general public, government and public health organizations across the country to spread the message that vaping is better than tobacco.

With TV doctor Dr Christian Jessen fronting the campaign, famous in the UK for his Channel 4 show 'Embarrassing Bodies', VApril aims to show smokers the different types of vape products on offer while helping them to vape responsibly.

They will also have the opportunity to take the Vape Challenge by trying a vape product instead of smoking during April while having the health impact of doing so monitored throughout the campaign period.

VApril is hoping to convert some of the 40 per cent of smokers who have never tried vaping and is backed by Public Health England whose report in February found e-cigarettes are 95 per cent less harmful than tobacco.

Dr Christian said: “I’m delighted to be joining forces with the UK Vaping Industry Association to launch VApril, the UK’s first ever vaping education and awareness campaign. I personally believe vaping has overwhelming potential to help smokers break their habit, and this is important because stopping smoking is the single most significant step that people can make to improve their health. Vaping is backed by PHE who say electronic cigarettes are 95% safer than smoking.

“It’s very simple: put down cigarettes for a month, take the VApril Challenge and give yourself the best chance of quitting smoking for good.”

E-cigarettes, according to the PHE research, could be contributing to at least 20,000 successful new quits per year – with the industry estimating this figure to be much higher. And there are already some 1.5million vapers in the UK who have quit smoking altogether.

Now VApril is hoping to reach out to some of the 7 million smokers in the UK with its three-step Vape Challenge.

Participants will firstly be encouraged to sign up to a vaping master class at locations across the UK, where they will be given a free vaping kit and will be introduced to the range of devices and vape juice flavours on the market.

A six-page guide called “Vape to Break the Smoking Habit” also gives smokers tips and advice on how to make the transition from cigarettes to vaping including using the right nicotine strengths in line with their smoking habits. The third step is to talk to fellow new vapers and post progress report on VApril’s online platforms.

John Dunne, a director of the UKVIA, added: “This will be the largest campaign ever run by the vaping industry and reflects how far the sector has come in a relatively short period of time.

“The challenge for the industry, government and the public health community is to get across the message that e-cigarettes are a very small risk compared to smoking and that nearly 3million smokers are now vaping, with a significant number having switched over altogether. VApril aims to be the starting point for more smokers to quit their habit.”

More information can be found at www.vapril.org.