I never smoked but strangely enough, the biggest success stories with regards to smoking, came from people who just ... stopped smoking. And with that I mean completely, cold-turkey.

I understand that this is not possible for everyone, as the brain works differently and some just have a harder push towards addiction by default (but also habit). But the most successful quitters I know of in reallife, more than half a dozen actually, were those who just decided to quit it. In theory lowering down to e. g. vapes and what not may help, but I know some who then just went back to their old habits, and kept on lying to themselves about it. The brain is great at finding excuses, so people may need to try different ways to handle the brain. It is not the cigarette as such nor vape or the addiction as the main problem - it is how the brain works and operates. What is also interesting is that many people do not even realise that, how they self-trick themselves into being addicts. (I am aware that it is very hard to break out of the cycle for many people too; not saying it may be easy for everyone. Often people have additional problems once in addiction, financial ones, physical problems, depression and so forth.)