According to a significant new survey of tens of thousands of British people, the majority of smokers believe vapes to be more harmful than cigarettes. This is true even though scientists maintain that the devices are safer than tobacco, which has been shown to cause cancer and heart damage. Researchers from University College London, who conducted the survey with nearly 30,000 smokers, stated that there is a "urgent need to tackle misperceptions about vaping." While e-cigarettes are well received in the medical community, it is unclear what the long-term consequences will be. Physicians worry that in the upcoming decades, individuals who are addicted to technology may experience an increase in lung disease, tooth problems, and cancer. As such, health chiefs state vapes – sold for as little as £5 – should only be considered as a way of helping smokers quit. The UCL study, which ran between 2014 and 2023, quizzed smokers in England about their perceptions of e-cigarettes. When the survey began, just 11 per cent of smokers thought vaping was actually worse for their health. Yet this doubled by the end of the project, which was published in the journal JAMA Network Open and funded by Cancer Research UK. Overall 57 per cent of smokers questioned last summer believed e-cigs were equally or more harmful than cigarettes.