25,000 people in the South West die every year from smoking

Nearly 25,000 people a year die in the West Country from smoking related diseases, according to figures released by Public Health England.

Devon has the highest rate of deaths caused by smoking in the region - with 3,697 people dying in the last year.

The statistics have been shared as part of a new health campaign to get smokers to swap to vaping as a stepping stone to quitting.

They've shared this short film to show how the toxic chemicals and tar inhaled by an average smoker in a month compare with not smoking or using an e-cigarette.

About the experiment

In the experiment, scientists mimicked the human lung by attaching a diaphragm pump to bell jars filled with cotton wool.

One was set up to smoke tobacco cigarettes, another to 'vape' cigarettes and a third with only air being drawn through it.

After smoking 330 cigarettes and the equivalent in e-liquid, the tobacco bell jar was brown and thick with tar while the e-cigarette jar was practically unchanged, with some water vapour on it, and the third jar was entirely unchanged.

Smoking attributable mortality broken down by local authority

• Bristol - 1,666

• Bath and North East Somerset - 655

• Devon - 3,697

• Plymouth - 1,335

• Torbay - 851

• Cornwall and Isles of Scilly - 2,935

• Dorset - 2,175

• Gloucestershire - 2,617

• North Somerset - 981

• Somerset - 2,679

• South Gloucestershire - 940

• Swindon - 881

• Wiltshire - 1,987