One of the most common arguments posed by vaping naysayers is that electronic cigarettes are the gateway to tobacco use. Ardent anti-vapers insist that just like cannabis is supposedly a gateway to harder drugs, vaping is the catalyst for tobacco smoking. Over the years, the cannabis-hard drug connection has been disproved many times, and it looks like the vaping-tobacco connection is also fast being proved to be incorrect.
 
Research into the Argument
In an effort to prove that electronic cigarettes are not a gateway to smoking tobacco, a number of intensive studies have been conducted, with one of the most recent completed by the Oklahoma State University. The purpose of the Oklahoma study was to analyse and evaluate the tobacco consumption habits of 1304 undergraduate students who engaged in recreational smoking with non-tobacco products. 
 
This study evaluated a number of variables, and one of the key metrics was determining participant tobacco use. Out of all the participants, 49% admitted to using tobacco products, with hookahs being the most commonly used at 38% and traditional cigarettes being the second at 32%. Electronic cigarettes came in last at 28.9%, and only 59 participants reported that these electronic devices provided the medium for the first time they’d ever tried nicotine. Out of the 59 first-time e cigarette users, only one participant had made the switch to tobacco cigarettes on a daily basis. In contrast, of the 326 participants whose first nicotine-based product was a traditional tobacco cigarette, 80 are now daily smokers.
 
Proof
The findings of this study were published in the January 2015 edition of the American Journal of Preventative Medicine and are yet more concrete proof that e cigs are not encouraging people to smoke tobacco. This solid proof will hopefully go a bit further in convincing those that are trying to alarm others that e cigarettes are bad. It should help to educate people as to the real facts. Thanks to this recent study and many others conducted on the same topic, vapers are able to continue to enjoy their electronic cigarettes safe in the knowledge that extensive research has been carried out and that their habit is not likely to encourage them to smoke tobacco.