E-Cig Revisited.

[austinlegro]

I wrote this a long time ago.

Now brought up to date a little.

The electronic cigarette is taking a very firm foothold and it’s not surprising.

When we decided to quit our filthy habit we all had good and variable reasons to do so. No doubt a long way up the list were ones like, “it’s killing me” or the slavery or the smell or the nagging.. just choose your own.

First things first I’m anti E-Cigs ok? Therefore I’m not suggesting we should turn towards them. Why? Well, for the simple reason that despite what a lot of people will say we were never really nicotine addicts at all and the E-Cig will, I’m sure, eventually demonstrate that. Also E-Cigs maintain a market for the tobacco industry of course.

Do you want to stop smoking? Want to smell better? Want to have your cake and eat it? Try vaping then. It might need a new word in the dictionary, the act of taking atomized nicotine vapour into the lungs but it is here and it’s real and you can do it in pubs and on the plane.

Ok, there are issues regarding legality, taxation, clinical drug trials and medicinal nicotine but these are just hurdles not walls. The NRT manufacturers must be shitting their pants at the moment for two scary reasons.

Number 1, as we’re lead to believe, if smokers smoke because they’re addicted to nicotine and every puff just feeds the constant but gradual reduction of it in the body then the E-Cig conquers the world. It’s smoking without the smoke. The nicotine craving is fed instantaneously, straight to the brain in a puff, it’s not particularly expensive because it is the tobacco that’s taxed not the nicotine and it’s “therapeutic” nicotine (ho ho) so it gives us our feed but it’s not actually bad for us. Every argument for smoking and continuing to smoke is covered by the e-cig and what possible reason can there be for continuing to smoke traditional cigarettes?

Transfer your addiction to e-cigs and you never need to spark up again or apply a patch or chew some gum or take any nasty drugs.

You can now smoke for the rest of your life but without ingesting compounds and chemicals of combustion. Ok, you're still taking nicotine but everyone's got to have a vice or two.

The smokers win, the e-cig manufacturers win but the government and the NRT guys lose big-time.

Number 2, we’re not addicted to nicotine at all. Ok, we get a little hit but it’s nothing to write home about and it staves off that low feeling associated with withdrawal. If we were really addicts we’d smoke the second we awoke and wouldn’t be able to function without our hit. We’d chew nicotine gum or summat if we couldn’t have a fag but we don’t. We tend to get up, mooch around, smoke our first fag then get on with the day. Most daily fags are triggered by breaks, getting in cars, getting off buses, hunger, finishing something, about to start something, commercial breaks etc etc and then given a social evening we smoked like a chimney. In those days when we were allowed to smoke in pubs our consumption rate had absolutely nothing to do with falling nicotine levels in our bodies”!

The startling fact that so many of us just wake up one day and say, “sod it, I’m giving up” and then do exactly that is a very poor argument for any sort of addiction. How can a change of heart ever cure an addiction? Unless? Wait, no, you can’t possibly mean?

So, if it’s nothing to do with nicotine and the e-cig and its nicotine and the act of drawing vapour into the lungs isn’t feeding your habit what is..?

Is it just a habit? If so it’s easy, gradually reduce the nicotine content of the smoking liquid and before you know it you’re vaping flavoured liquid (already available), no nicotine but still feeding the compulsive habit but pretty much in a un-harmful way.

Then you realise that your smoking habit didn’t actually have anything to do with nicotine but who cares, the smokers win, the e-cig manufacturers win but the government and the NRT guys lose big-time.

Unfortunately you still have the compulsive habit though...

However, I am very pro-choice and there appears to be a growing list of successful quits appearing from the continued growth of the ECig.

If we try for a minute to ignore the spammy and affiliate nature of ECig marketing is there a bone-fide quit aid hiding underneath? ECig websites, unlike the spammers, are very quick to point out that ECigs are most definitely NOT an aid to quitting, presumably because to claim so would require clinical trials that the manufacturers have no intention yet of taking part in.

Just because they can’t be sold as a quit aid doesn’t make them not a quit aid. After all, NRT is sold as a quit aid yet bizarrely doesn’t help people quit. Go figure!

I can’t imagine the leap from fags to ECigs is that great and I can picture a straightforward switch.

If the cartridge strength is reduced to zero and if people are then just vaping nicotine-free then does it just become a simple act of stopping vaping one day or is the vaping habit maintained with just as much dependence as tobacco?

What happens the day the battery dies or it breaks or it's lost? Does the vaper buy 10 fags instead or are fags history for them?

I must say, at the moment I’m totally perched on the fence with insufficient data to turn to!

[nsd_user663_2497]

Same here. Got a friend still occasionally using a Sky Cig, and I'm not really sure what discernible effect it's having.

I know I'm not willing to go down that road is all I can say for sure.

[nsd_user663_6426]

Maybe some people who use e-cigs don't want to give up...they just don't want to kill themselves from smoking tobacco. Vaping still lets them have a nice buzz from the nicotine but without the life shortening diseases that goes with smoking cigarettes.

[Hidden]

E-cig

I bought a packet of sky cigs for this quit after chatting to someone outside a restaurant who said they had helped him switch form a 40 a day habit to 5 puffs a day. Worth a try, I thought I'd try this quit from a different angle.

The pack comes with two batteries which last for ages (have charged them using the built-in charger once) and 5 cartridges of different flavours - I have used 2 I think.

It was expensive - £50 for the lot - but i thought actually having to pay for this would be a good incentive to stop since scripts for patches etc are now free in Scotland.

I use it in extreme moments, once in a blue moon where otherwise I MAY have turned to tobacco. It gives instant relief and I very much doubt that I would become addicted to it as it was bought as an aid to stopping instead of lozenges which previously hurt my mouth after a while, along with patches. Also it makes me feel slightly sick, a bit like smoking a cigarette when you are used to a rollup, and vice versa.

Since I don't use any other NRT now, I do wonder that if I have a puff it will set me back two paces as it is in effect reinforcing my nicotine addicition. Still, it's much preferable to smoking a 'real' cigarette and I don't have to worry about what to do with the other 9 in the pack and can recoup those extra 2 paces later.

All in all, I think it's a useful wee aid to stopping smoking. :rolleyes:

[nsd_user663_26699]

I bought a packet of sky cigs for this quit after chatting to someone outside a restaurant who said they had helped him switch form a 40 a day habit to 5 puffs a day. Worth a try, I thought I'd try this quit from a different angle.

I guess the first thing that springs to my mind is if you can get by on only a few puffs a day, why bother at all? The second thing is whether it is a potential NRT in and of itself.

To the latter I say, muh. I'm not terrifically fond of the idea of traditional NRT, and the e-cig - if it were to be used as NRT (i.e. tapering doses until smoking on fresh steam) - seems a convenient way of prolonging the agony, or even worse; providing the tobacco an alternative means of generating revenue. :eek: One might argue that the e-cig is a good way for the tobacco industry to pull in new customers. Get them "addicted" to nicotine and they'll either start smoking cigarettes, or at least they'll continue to smoke the e-cig.

I dunno, good question as always Austin. No answers from me, unfortunately.

Alex.

[nsd_user663_16968]

Just wanted to add that i used mine to start and mine is Menthol Zero Nicotine.

I specifically chose the Zero version as i did not want to feed my addiction but in the early days i wanted to curb the habit. I used mine before i stopped completely and whilst im not saying go buy one only that it did help me xx

[nsd_user663_3282]

I must say, at the moment I’m totally perched on the fence with insufficient data to turn to!

In the real world I get newscuts emailed. Saw this and thought to add here. Obviously there's not much substance to the headline but I'll gather more info at lunchtime and add in anything helpful.

"E-cigarettes A health board has become the first in Scotland to ban electronic cigarettes after growing health fears about the gadgets, which are increasingly being used by health-conscious smokers. "

And here you go:

"NHS Fife ruled e-cigarettes were too dangerous to use at hospitals and clinics because they include a heating element that could ignite a patient's bedding or clothing. It claimed there was a risk the battery-operated nicotine replacement could explode and injure the smoker and also feared the devices produced a vapour that could set off fire alarms.

A spokeswomen for the Health Board said, "NHS Fife has a duty to provide a safe environment for all patients, visitors and staff, and following investigation, our senior fire adviser has identified a number of potential risks with these products. These potential risks are similar to the risks posed by any electrical equipment that uses a heating element. The decision has been taken to ban the use of these products on all NHS Fife sites until safety information emerges."

Pro-smoking organisation Forest has argued it is ridiculous to ban the * cigarettes because a, "...lot of smokers use them to help them to cut down on smoking or to try to quit."

The British Medical Association published guidance about e-cigarettes in public places and workplaces in March. It said, "E-cigarettes are not regulated as a tobacco product or as a medicine in the UK and there is no peer-reviewed evidence that they are a safe and effective nicotine replacement therapy."

*Weird that Forest call them 'cigarettes' when everyone else calls them 'e-cigarettes'

[nsd_user663_7318]

I'm not for them or against them. I know folk who used them to keep them off "proper" tobacco. I guess it depends on your reason for giving up. Is it to stop smoking because of health and worry? Is it to stop taking nicotine? Is it the smell?

I read the hospital statement with an air of caution as they're not going to support any for of commercial venture that could damage their reputation. I've certainly not read any reports of e-cigarette smokers having their lips blown off...but I haven't looked.