Vaping and e-cigarettes

Vaping and e-cigarettes is an Australia's health topic

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Introduction What data sources are available? What do we know about e-cigarette availability in Australia? What do we know about people who use e-cigarettes? What are the harms associated with e-cigarette use? How many people receive treatment for e-cigarette use? Where do I go for more information?

Introduction

The use of e‑cigarettes (‘vaping’) has risen sharply over the last decade, including among people who also use regular cigarettes (AIHW 2024). The long-term harms of e-cigarettes are not fully known, but people who use e-cigarettes are exposed to toxic chemicals that can cause adverse health effects (NHMRC 2022). Ongoing monitoring of e-cigarette use and harms is important to identify groups of people at increased risk of harm and potential areas for intervention.

This page focuses on e-cigarette use, treatment and harms in Australia. The reporting uses data from a range of sources, mostly survey data. For information on laws and policies related to e-cigarettes in this report, see Policy context.

Key findings

What data sources are available?

There are a limited number of data sources that contain information about e-cigarette use, harms and treatment. These are mostly self-report surveys that ask people about their use of e-cigarettes, with limited information available in health administrative data sets. Each data set uses a different methodology, and the language used to describe e-cigarette use may also differ across sources.

For more information on each data source, see Technical notes.

What do we know about e-cigarette availability in Australia?

The sale of e-cigarettes in Australia is regulated by Commonwealth and jurisdictional laws. On 1 July 2024, the law changed so that all vapes and vaping products, regardless of whether they contain nicotine or not, can only be sold in a pharmacy for the purpose of helping people quit smoking or manage nicotine dependence. (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing 2025). From 1 October 2024, people aged 18 and over can buy vapes from participating pharmacies with a nicotine concentration of 20mg/mL or less subject to state and territory arrangements. People (regardless of their age) who require vapes with a higher nicotine concentration, and people under 18 years, need a prescription to access vapes, subject to state and territory arrangements (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2024).

Prior to the introduction of these laws, data from the National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS) showed that, among people who currently use e-cigarettes in 2022–2023:

  • 40% of people sourced e-cigarettes from a tobacco retail outlet, up from 20% in 2019
  • 23% of people sourced e-cigarettes from a friend or family member, up from 14% in 2019
  • 8.5% of people sourced e-cigarettes online from an overseas retailer and 8.3% sourced them online from an Australian retailer, down from 22% and 24% in 2019, respectively (AIHW 2024, Table 3.38).

For related content on e-cigarette policy in this report, see Policy context.

What do we know about people who use e-cigarettes?

How many people use e-cigarettes and has it changed over time?

  • The number of people who use e-cigarettes has been rising in recent years

    Source: National Drug Strategy Household Survey
  • 7%

    of people in Australia currently used e-cigarettes in 2022–2023

    Source: National Drug Strategy Household Survey

The 2022–2023 NDSHS showed both lifetime and current use of e-cigarettes increased between 2016 and 2019, and again to 2022–2023. Between 2019 and 2022–2023, lifetime use of e-cigarettes increased from 11.3% to 19.8% and current use increased from 2.5% to 7.0% (AIHW 2024, tables 3.1 and 3.3).

Among people who currently used e-cigarettes in 2022–2023:

  • around 1 in 2 (49%) used them daily, an increase from 2019 (42%) (AIHW 2024, Table 3.8)
  • almost 3 in 4 (73%) reported the last e-cigarette they used contained nicotine (AIHW 2024, Table 3.16).

The 2022 National Health Survey (NHS) reported that about 1 in 7 (14%) people aged 18 and over had used an e-cigarette or vaping device at least once, and 4.0% reported currently using a device (ABS 2023).

Does e-cigarette use differ by age and gender?

  • People aged 18–24 have the highest rates of e-cigarette use

    Source: National Drug Strategy Household Survey

Daily use of e-cigarettes is generally more common among younger people than people in older age groups (Figure 1). Data from the 2022–2023 NDSHS showed that:

  • People aged 18–24 had the highest rate of daily e-cigarette use (9.3%). Daily use of e-cigarettes was more common among females in this age group (10.3%) than males (8.5%).
  • People aged 25–34 were the most likely to report they used to use e-cigarettes but no longer use them (6.0%) (AIHW 2024, Table 3.9).

Figure 1: Use of e-cigarettes, by age and gender, 2016 to 2022–2023

This bar chart shows that the proportion of people who currently vaped in 2022–2023 was highest in the 18–24-year age group, and decreased among each subsequent age group.

This bar chart shows that the proportion of people who currently vaped in 2022–2023 was highest in the 18–24-year age group, and decreased among each subsequent age group.

In 2022–2023, the average age of initiation for e-cigarette use among people who currently use e-cigarettes was:

  • 19.4 years for those who had never smoked tobacco when they first tried an e-cigarette, a decrease from 20.2 years in 2019
  • 25.8 years for people who smoked tobacco socially when they first tried an e-cigarette
  • 33.0 years for people who smoked regularly when they first tried an e-cigarette, a decrease from 38.1 years in 2019 (AIHW 2024, Table 3.33).

The 2022 NHS reported:

  • Almost 1 in 5 (18%) young people aged between 15 and 17 had used an e-cigarette or vaping device at least once.
  • Men were more likely than women to have used an e-cigarette or vaping device at least once (17% compared with 11%) (ABS 2023).

Why do people use e-cigarettes?

  • Younger people are more likely to try e-cigarettes out of curiosity, while people in their 60s and over are more likely to try e-cigarettes to help them quit smoking

    Source: National Drug Strategy Household Survey

Use of e-cigarettes is more common among younger age groups in Australia, and their reasons for using e-cigarettes are different to that of older people. According to the 2022–2023 NDSHS, the most common reason for trying e-cigarettes was curiosity (57%), but this varied by age. Specifically:

  • Curiosity was the most common reason for e-cigarette use among people aged 14–17 (74%) and 18–24 (68%).
  • To help them quit smoking was the most common reason for e-cigarette use among people aged 60–69 (53%) and 70 and over (49%) (AIHW 2024, Table 3.34; Figure 2).

Figure 2: Reasons for using e-cigarettes, by people who had ever used electronic cigarettes, by age, 2022–2023

This cross tab chart shows that across all age groups, it was uncommon for people to vape because they can vape in places where regular cigarettes are banned.

This cross tab chart shows that across all age groups, it was uncommon for people to vape because they can vape in places where regular cigarettes are banned.

Does e-cigarette use differ by geographic area?

Since 2016, current e-cigarette use has risen across all Australian states and territories, remoteness areas, and socioeconomic areas (AIHW 2024, tables 9b.8, 9a.12 and 9a.14). Detailed information on e-cigarette use by geographic area within Australia is available in the National Drug Strategy Household Survey.

Detailed information on e-cigarette use by geographic area in this report is available in Geographic areas.

For related content on e-cigarette use among specific population groups in this report, see Population groups.

What are the harms associated with e-cigarette use?

As e-cigarettes are relatively new, only becoming popular in the last 10–15 years, evidence for the longer-term health effects of their use is limited. However, e-cigarette use is associated with a range of health risks including nausea and vomiting, persistent coughing, nicotine dependence, respiratory problems and lung damage, and poisoning and seizures from excessive nicotine inhalation or ingestion of e-liquid (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing 2025). Illegal e-cigarettes can contain chemicals that are known to cause cancer, including formaldehyde and heavy metals like lead (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing 2025, Winnall et al. 2023).

For the latest available information on harms related to e-cigarettes, see Tobacco in Australia: Facts and issues.

How many people receive treatment for e-cigarette use?

Specialist treatment for nicotine use

Nicotine (including both tobacco and e-cigarette use) accounts for a small proportion of specialist alcohol and other drug treatment episodes provided to clients each year (AIHW 2026). Nicotine was the principal drug of concern in just 1.0% (around 2,100) of treatment episodes in 2024–25, relatively stable since 2015–16 (2.4% or around 4,700 episodes) (AIHW 2026).

For related content on nicotine treatment in this report, see also:

Where do I go for more information?

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