New research has found that even thought e-cigarette use is exploding, public perceptions indicate that many people think that vaping is as harmful if not more harmful than cigarette smoking — a conclusion that is totally false, officials say.

Figures released by Action on Smoking and Health indicate that there are now 2.6 million e-cigarette users in Great Britain alone, according to a Darlington and Stockton Times report. That’s a heavy increase from 2.1 million in 2014, and it has virtually all come from smokers who are trying to kick the habit with e-cigs rather than non-smokers giving it a try.

The Smokefree Britain Survey found that e-cig use has jumped among ex-smokers from 4.5 percent to 6.7 percent and stayed constant among current smokers at 17.6 percent. Never-smokers, meanwhile, picks up an e-cig just 0.2 percent of the time.

Typically, the reason e-cig users gave for doing so was to stop smoking, which was the case 48 percent of the time, and 38 percent of the time it was to keep them from relapsing.

But as e-cig use has risen dramatically, so have fears about the lack of scientific data on its health effects, and it has led to a sizeable minority of the public believing that vaping is as harmful or more harmful than smoking, with that perception rising from 15 percent of the population in 2014 to 22 percent the very next year.

Smokers who have never tried e-cigs have grown increasingly negative about vaping, with a perception of harm jumping from 12 percen tto 22 percent over that time period.

However, the report quoted a spokesperson for the North-East tobacco control office in Britain saying that estimates suggest that vaping is 95 percent less dangerous than smoking, and there are some big health benefits to those who have been trying to quit smoking and never could. Although not all the scientific work has been done, the early indications is that it is the tar and other toxins in tobacco that causes illnesses, not the nicotine.