This is the way I look at it.
Patient smokes 20 cigs a day, taking in all that tar, carbon monoxide and all the other nasty stuff that greatly increases his risk of developing lots of health problems, some very serious.
NHS could advise he should Quit Smoking but leave him to him get on with it in his own way.
If Patient does not change smoking habits, NHS (our tax money) will end up paying the Bill to deal with all the extra health conditions that develop - which can cost hundreds of thousands for the surgery and all the different drugs and therapies.
Or
NHS could offer more encouragement and provide a Quit Smoking Service, which includes prescriptions for Quit Smoking aids, such as prescriptions for a course of tablets, like Champix, to help you quit (which they already do) or try offering prescriptions to introduce people to the cheaper alternative of vaping. This has two benefits - it gets them onto a Quit Smoking programme to gradually reduce nicotine content on a planned programme to help them manage cravings after coming off cigarettes.
If they donāt succeed in losing the craving for nicotine, at least the programme has introduced them to a less damaging form of nicotine and a much cheaper form of it, if they continue buying their own vape after their prescriptions stop.
Covering the cost of 3 months of either of these things is a drop in the ocean to the NHS compared to the money they will save for every person they manage to wean off smoking tobacco.
Thereās bound to be some who donāt manage to quit first time round but I donāt think the NHS will be continuing to prescribe vaping stuff to a patient indefinitely - the focus will be on trying to help them manage cravings while coming off tobacco.
Some years ago, I used to know someone who had respiratory problems and was getting nicotine patches on NHS free prescriptions, to wean him off cigarettes.
He started off with good intentions but slid back to cigs after a few days - after that, he used the patches to manage his cravings when he had no money to buy cigarettes but carried on smoking when he had money to buy cigarettes!
He didnāt get away with it for long - the GP would only prescribe the patches while he was on the Quit Smoking programme.
I gave up smoking the ācold Turkeyā way, after many years of trying and lots of failed attempts that lasted a few weeks or a few months. I think for some people, it just takes a day when suddenly you find your mind set is ready to tackle it - it took me decades to get to that stage, so I do not begrudge the NHS spending a bit of dosh in trying to help people get to the quitting stage sooner, especially if it saves peopleās health and our tax money in the long run.