The CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) recently shared great news regarding cigarette smoking: the percentage of US adults who smoke cigarettes declined from 20.9% in 2005 to 16.8% in 2014. This report shows real progress in reducing tobacco smoking, as the deadly drug kills over half a million Americans a year. A variety of factors have led to this marked decline. Stringent smoking laws and numerous anti-smoking campaigns are certainly helping this trend. But a different, unexpected factor may be one of the primary causes of smoking’s sudden downturn: vaping.

As tobacco smoking has steadily declined over the past decade, vaping has steadily increased over the same period of time, especially with young people. An estimated 13.4% of high school students reported vaping in 2014, a huge increase from 4.5% in 2013. “Vaping” is an all-encompassing term that describes the inhaling and exhaling of vapor produced by electronic cigarettes.

The main difference is that e-cigarettes do not contain tobacco. A review recently published by Public Health England found that electronic cigarettes are 95 percent less harmful than conventional cigarettes. This is mainly due to the tobacco in conventional cigarettes that is not present in e-cigarettes.

Vaping was initially thought to be a potentially dangerous gateway to cigarette smoking. But those fears have been assuaged as numerous studies have proved that vaping is a healthier alternative to smoking.

Stopping smoking altogether is proven to be safe and one particular statistic proves the worth of vaping: smokers are 60% more likely to quit with the help of an electronic smoking device.

It’s pretty clear that in the short-term, vaping is a far less harmful activity than smoking. But less harmful does not mean harmless and vaping’s long-term effects have yet to be determined.