Has anyone managed to give up smoking by gradually swapping cigarettes for vapes
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Welcome to the VC, young lady! Or am I presumptuous? Christopher Maltasonti on The Sopranos is often called Chrissy. Do us all a favor and introduce yourself in the topic “Introductions”. Or something like that. Maybe “Introduce yourself”? There’s a magifying glass in the upper right corner so you can search for “introduction”.
I don’t think many of us would recommend that. You can simply replace the sinky’s with juice. Find a flavot you like and you’ll never look back! However, you can slowly reduce the Nicotine in the vape juice to reduce the desire to inhale what we we call the “stinky’s”
Another alternative is to do what I did. I made (but you can buy online) zero nic juices. I did the Nic patches and vaped. You get the hand to mouth, throat hit and the expanding lungs, but slowly reduce the nic. Do you have to reduce the nic? Nope. Give me one good reason not to. Nic raises blood pressure. Hypertension which can lead to death and a reduction of cognitive skills.
Patches run from 21 mg/24 hours, then 14 and then 7 mg. 14 patches over 2 weeks. I was smoking 10 swisher sweets a day. Google said 1 cigar is = to ten stinky’s. 5 Packs a day. I started at 21 mg AND 14. Then 21 and 7 mg. Then, 21, then 14, then 7.
I can’t say for sure as I don’t know what Country you’re in, but insurance co’s here in the US will give you nic patches free. Patches, are MUCH cheaper than Chemo. 
I wouldn’t know the ratio of stinky’s nic to vape juice.
Like how many mg of nic per stinky is = to vape juice. (And how many packs you smoke a day.) I’m sure someone here could tell you. Probably @SessionDrummer. It also depends on how much you smoke. Do you chain smoke and will you chain vape?
Note that I’m a noob, so I don’t feel comfortable giving a LOT of advice, BUT, were I you, I’d buy some juice with X mg of nic based on whatever others’ suggest. AS you ween yourself off the nicotine, learn to make your own juice!
Why? Making juice is COOL! Little bit of chemistry, a fair amount of experimenting. Best part, you can make any flavor you like! If you’re British, I imagine you like a cucumber and cream cheese sandwich. I had one of those on a flight from England to Italy and almost retched! Sounded good at the time…
Do you like the fruits, or desserts? I like Butter fingers, vanilla ice cream/butterscotch swirl, or malted milk and just plain brown sugar.
Fruits are what we call shake and vape. Mix a batch, shake it and vape it. Sweeter juices like custards, ice cream and Butterfingers take a MINIMUM of 2 weeks to steep. Like a spot-a-tea.
What’s a 100 ml bottle of juice cost in your neck of the woods? Here in the U.S. it runs around $30.00. I invested $100 in a scale, and liquids including flavors, bottles and nic and I calculated a 100 ml bottle cost $1.68. As you buy more liquids and bottles the price drops exponentially.
Note that there are pre-fab recipe’s here from mixologists that have been mixing for decades, Spot on! When you’re ready to make you’re own juices these sites have calculators. I want X PG/VG. flavor concentrates…etc.
Each and every one of them has a line item for desired strength. But they don’t say strength of WHAT? It’s desired strength of nicotine. Do you want, 24 mg, 18, 4 or 2…? There’s not a soul here that doesn’t want to help you quit smoking.
The trick is to be patient in your mixing adventure!
Ok, guys and gals, lemme know how far off my logic is!
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Hey @crissy first off, welcome to the VC.
As far as this, I can only tell you MY process, and yours may be different.
I was a heavy smoker, at least 2 packs a day (or so), for too damned long. Back in the WAY BACK, hehe, vaping equipment, ejuice was all (for the MOST part) pretty SUB-par compared to what we have now, including flavors.
I decided to TRY quitting smoking by vaping. I kept a FULL pack of cigarettes with me, JUST as a safety net, but steadily started vaping. I knew I could ALWAYS grab the pack if I needed to, but I never did. God only knows how, because dripping on a 510 atty back then, was a REAL PITA. I was hitting 24mg freebase juice, which is VERY strong for freebase, and I knew I needed to start out high, to be able to make the switch.
NEVER grabbed for the pack of cigarettes, and made SURE to have backup batteries, atomized, fully charged, so I was never left in a lurch.
For me, it worked out.
I’ve never tried to slowly shift from one to the other, so I can’t speak firsthand. Getting a good setup WITH a backup, and a HIGH enough NIC level so it won’t be a shock to your system.
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In the UK anyone who smokes every day can get in touch with their local NHS Stop Smoking Service, or a local Pharmacy based service, both can provide free NRT, possibly patches, gum, inhalers, or vouchers for a starter Vape Kit. You get a counsellor, a support group and have to answer to someone who will test your blood for carbon monoxide as well.
For the sake of lurkers, that is the UK situation.
If you don’t fancy the NHS, buying your own vape equipment and a good chat with the staff at a respectable vape shop worked out fine for me. Over the counter patches will cost you £24 a packet, but there is nicotine gum in Savers (less than £2) and Poundland (and that is £1 a box).
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In most ways, The UK is WAY ahead of the U.S. on smoking cessation. Only thing we have on y’all is the free alternatives to nicotine.
BUT… I looked at your NHS Stop Smoking service and smoking cessation is not front and center. We have the American Heart Association, but there, too cessation is somewhat buried, but was easier to find than on the NHS. Only one pharmacy franchise I know of doesn’t sell any nicotine products. But they do sell every make and model of alcohol.
Another sells smokes, but only wine.
Time was, you could go to a smoke shop and learn how to make your own juices. Walk out with a hand full. Most States other than Ca. still allow it, but our government in this State thinks kids will get in on it. While we all know few shops check ids, I can’t see a bunch of adults sitting around a table with kids, and not asking to see ids.
MOST adults don’t want teens consuming nicotine. It’s not in our best interest.
We also have few sources for cessation support. Knowledge of where to go is not commonly known.
Go to your doctor and ask for nic patches. He’ll do some test to see how well you can blow to prove to the insurance companies. that you’re in need. He will not offer anyplace to get support! Ask and he shall not know!!!
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Pauly, if finding the bloody help becomes a separate hobby, somebody has made a mess of the signposting.
There is one useful US option worth leaving here for anyone reading: 1-800-QUIT-NOW. The CDC lists it for free, confidential quit coaching:
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/hcp/patient-care/quitlines-and-other-resources.html
That doesn’t mean everyone gets the same medication or insurance benefits, but it does give people an actual starting point.
“Ask your doctor” is a fair suggestion. “Ask your doctor, then wander off and work the rest out yourself” is a rather less impressive support programme.
The person trying to quit has enough to wrestle with. They shouldn’t need a treasure map to find somebody who answers the phone.
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What keywords did you use to search for that site?
I entered: Support for smoking cessation.
I got links to things like a nicorette website with lots of annoying popups. Sign up now, Join the movement, Join our news letter… I get enough spam, thanks.
Then: The California Oral Health Technical Assistance Center provides support and resources to dental professionals to identify…
There were then some links that looked promising WHEN you followed the link, but the title to the link was vague and did not immediately say, “here is a national (Or State based) support system.”
Ask the same question but add; in the UK and it’s a whole different story!
NHS stop smoking services help you quit - NHS
UK Quite smoking service
Support for people trying to give up smoking
And a bunch more that are clear as to what’s inside! Right off the top. Not the 4th or 5th links. TOP links.
If I had to guess, it’s because big tobacco lobbies congress, and the States tax cigarettes BIG TIME!
Makes me feel like they’re saying, “well, we know it’s bad so we kinda want you to quit so we make them so expensive, but we sure do get a lot of income from them that fund our pet projects…”
Then new brands come in with their own brands that are half the price of the big brands. How TF is that legal? Did they deliberately leave that loop-hole to keep people smoking? Big brands, $10 - $12/pack. New brands, $6 - to $8/pack. ANY brand and any thing nicotine are taxed at 50%. Last I heard.
1 British pound = $0.75. But I bet you know that. I had to ask google.
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The signposting point is fair — results quality often comes down to phrasing. “Quit smoking support” or “tobacco cessation program” tends to surface state quitlines, while “support for smoking cessation” pulls product sites. On pricing, the gap is usually a mix of state excise taxes, wholesale contracts and brand positioning rather than one loophole, though the tax-revenue angle is a real tension worth naming. Either way, the person quitting shouldn’t have to decode search terms to find a live human.
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, “well, we know it’s bad so we kinda want you to quit so we make them so expensive, but we sure do get a lot of income from them that fund our pet projects…”
This is a problem in the UK too. After the point at which the tax ran so high that the government had to stop saying that smoking was “costing the NHS money”, because actually each continuing smoker was covering their own healthcare and a couple of others too, things started to get awkward. Over and over again they raised the tax on tobacco, justified with “motivating smokers to quit”, while some of the public still believe that smokers cost the NHS money.
Now they are in a bind, with a growing black market in cigarettes and HRT, and what was a booming legal vape market. They are estimating making £500 million in vape tax by 2030, but I think they have messed that up. They made wrong assumptions about how much liquid “the average vaper” uses, they have raised cigarette and tobacco tax at the same time, in order to be able to say that it is still cheaper to vape, but they have failed to take into account the black market prices. When the new tax is applicable to all available vape liquid, black market tobacco will be equal to or maybe cheaper than vaping.
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I though the UK was VERY pro vaping.
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You are correct, but not quite up to date with the news there.
Nicotine in liquid form was just categorised as poison, because prior to the existance of vape devices, there was no safe way to consume the stuff. The law only restricted forcing or tricking someone else into drinking it (as in murder), so mixing it with propyline glycol and glycerine and dropping it into a compartment in a whacky gadget called a “vaping device” was open game when the idea was new.
Between the wonderful creativity of my fellow citizens creating flavours and the spiritual generosity of those who started a business to help other smokers, we ended up with this https://ukvia.co.uk/first-ever-report-into-vapings-impact-on-uk-economy-reveals-flourishing-multi-billion-pound-industry/ .
Now we have this - https://www.vapingpost.com/2026/10/08/uk-the-vaping-paradise-is-no-more/ .
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If I read that latter article correctly, it’ll cost more to vape, than to smoke?
What do they have against vaping, especially if it’s nic free?!
Truth be told, I don’t follow all the regulations here either. Each State is fairly autonomous, so each one can make it’s own laws.
Having said that, the federal government can set nation wide laws. However, Marijuana was unsanctioned by the feds as a federal offense. but some states said, “Screw you, we’re making it legal.” Jails were stuffed with pot dealers. Colorado decided they could save money by not prosecuting weed smokers and even make money by taxing it.
Since you can legally grow 6 plants of weed in California, you “Could” sell it. Illegally. I’ve seen in the news where farmers are growing huge quantities and selling it illegally, but it’s VERY rare they’re caught. Or if they are, they’re seldom prosecuted. I mean, who cares, right? The State is losing revenue, but the jails are (Less) overcrowded.
Of course the feds switch sides ALL the time! Not “MUCH” across party lines.
I’m sorry, but that sounds silly to me. Of course it costs money! WHO does it cost money though. The Government, or the ones that want to quit?
I personally think it should be free to smokers.
Gotta be cheaper to help someone quit smoking than to pay for your Chemotherapy.
Welcome to the neighborhood! There’s a topic called new-comers-introductions.
Please introduce your self. Nothing mundane, please. We’re into sordid details. Mamma grew a beard, daddy got shot from a cannon…
What’s your rig, what flavors do you like, how long 'ya been at it?
NHS quit smoking help is free, because it is cheaper than the consequences of smoking, yes.
It is just that because the NHS is free to use for anyone, everyone who does not smoke but still gets ill, also costs the NHS money…the difference is the smoker can be blamed. The point is that an innocent sick person does not cost less to treat because they are not guilty.
Taxes fund the NHS, and smokers who buy their tobacco legally are paying enough in tax over a lifetime to cover the expense of their own consequent health problems, and more.
Not quite, however it does look like the government misjudged the situation,
"To build a picture of whether the data used to set the VPD rate was inaccurate, we teamed up with the UKVIA to conduct a survey of over 3,500 active vapers in the UK. No incentives were offered, we simply asked people to answer the questions honestly.
The results showed us that the average consumption rate to be 26ml a week — over double the estimate used by HMRC to set the Vaping Product Duty.
This tells us that the proposed VPD rate of 22p per ml has been set twice as high as it should be to obtain the tax revenue it is tasked with achieving. This goes beyond a sensible increase, and is set to create the impending price shock, and what could be serious unintended impacts." https://www.vapeclub.co.uk/how-to-vape-guide/the-impact-of-the-vaping-products-duty
The VPD is likely to greatly reduce the appeal of vaping as a smoking cessation tool, despite its effectiveness versus alternative nicotine replacement therapies
Vaping prices rise around 11 times faster than cigarette prices — a volume-weighted 44% increase on vaping products against 4% on cigarettes. Refillable e-liquid rises 75%; prefilled pods 12%
An additional 1.5bn additional cigarettes (sticks) are predicted to be consumed per year — a big win for Big Tobacco from this - https://www.planetofthevapes.co.uk/news/vaping-news/2026-09-29_urgent-government-talks-needed.html