EX SMOKERS who switched from cigarettes to vaping are more likely to use fruit flavours over tobacco, new research has revealed.

While many tobacco smokers initiated e-cigarette use by choosing flavours which mimicked their old habit - namely tobacco or menthol - over time more are switching to fruit, candy, desert or chocolate flavours and haven't returned to cigarettes.

The number of first-time vapers choosing non-tobacco flavours to help transition from cigarettes has also rocketed over the past few years.

The revealing statistics are being seen by the vaping community as vital in proving to the US government and pressure organizations that fruit and candy flavoured vape juice is very much used - and has real health benefits - to ex smokers at a time when cities and states are banning flavours, believing them to be sold as a tool to entice young people into taking up e-cigarettes.

The research published in the Harm Reduction Journal was undertaken because the role that flavours play in the population's use of e-cigarettes and the impact that flavoured e-cigarette products have on the population's use of more harmful tobacco products, like conventional cigarettes "has been identified by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a public health research priority".

In an online survey, 20,836 adult frequent e-cigarette users in the USA were asked about their first e-cigarette flavour and current e-cigarette flavours. Differences in e-cigarette flavour preferences between current smokers, former smokers, and never-smokers and trends in the first flavour used across time of e-cigarette use initiation were also assessed.

The results showed that the proportion of first e-cigarette purchases that were fruit flavoured increased from 17.8% of first purchases made before 2011 to 33.5% of first purchases made between June 2015 and June 2016.

Tobacco-flavoured first purchases almost halved during this time (46.0% pre-2011 to 24.0% between 2015 and 2016). Fruit/fruit beverage (73.9 to 82.9% of sampled users), dessert/pastry (63.5 to 68.5% of sampled users), and candy, chocolate, or sweets (48.7 to 53.4% of sampled users) were the most popular currently used e-cigarette flavours.

Tobacco and menthol flavours, the two most popular flavours for initiating e-cigarette use prior to 2013, now rank as the 5th and 6th most popular currently used e-cigarette flavours, respectively.

The report concluded: "Adult frequent e-cigarette users in the USA who have completely switched from smoking cigarettes to using e-cigarettes are increasingly likely to have initiated e-cigarette use with non-tobacco flavours and to have transitioned from tobacco to non-tobacco flavours over time. Restricting access to non-tobacco e-cigarette flavours may discourage smokers from attempting to switch to e-cigarettes."