For decades, the patch and the piece of gum have stood as the quiet symbols of a smoker's attempt to break free — familiar, imperfect, and often insufficient. A sweeping Cochrane review of 80 trials and nearly 30,000 participants now places nicotine e-cigarettes ahead of these established methods, finding that regulated vaping devices produce meaningfully higher quit rates than conventional nicotine replacement therapy. The finding does not arrive as a simple triumph, but as a carefully bounded one: the evidence applies only to approved, licensed products, and researchers are already looking b