Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) in tobacco smoke increase the effectiveness and addictiveness of nicotine, which practically means tobacco is dramatically more addictive than nicotine alone [0]. By switching to an alternative that contains nicotine while keeping physical sensations essentially unchanged, tobacco users can remove MAOIs from their system and then focus on the behavior (hand fiddling, inhaling) and chemical addiction (gradually reduce dosage) separately.
Beyond that, vaping is so obviously safer than smoking. It strikes me as profoundly hypocritical to ban the less dangerous alternative, while keeping the unbelievably deadly cigarettes on the market.