I have a question for the OP about how the thing works. Do you assemble it and then have to disassemble it if you’re done e-smoking? Supposedly, according to the web site smokeanywhere.com, one cartridge is equivalent to about 2 packs of cigarettes. One cigarette is self-limiting; you obviously stop when it’s done, and you then have to light another one if you want to continue. With this gadget, do you tend to actually “smoke” longer at a time? Do you find yourself going for 10 or 15 minutes at a stretch?
I don’t have an answer for you, but that sounds good me. A cigarette you can basically turn off & on. I like to smoke frequently, but always wished someone would make a half cigarette or something, especially in the winter when it’s cold outside.
To the OP: so, they’re cheaper than cigarettes, but has anyone broken it down to say, what the cost would be per pack or carton, if it were real cigarettes? What’s the initial outlay?
The site I saw, smokeanywhere.com , claims you save hundreds, even thousands, of dollars over a year’s time. They calculate that as the number of “drags” in a pack of regular cigs vs. the number in an e-cig cartridge. My immediate thought was how do you turn the thing off after a certain number. Wouldn’t you be more likely to keep going longer and thus negate the supposed financial savings?
First of all, the manufacturers’ and dealers’ claims tend to be wildly inaccurate. I’d put a cartridge at maybe half a pack, if that. The cartridges are certainly inexpensive enough that you can treat them as disposable, but you can also buy nicotine juice to refill them if you want.
The cigarette consists of three pieces that screw together into the shape of a cigarette - the battery, the atomizer, and the cartridge. The atomizer is only activated (i.e. it’s “on”) when you’re inhaling. I don’t know what kind of crazy switch they use to pull that off, but there you go. When you’re done using it, you can just slip it in your pocket fully assembled, or you can take it apart and put it in a small case.
I’m not really sure if I smoke more or less because, as you say, it’s sort of a different dynamic with these things because they’re not “done” like real cigarettes are, so I just pick it up whenever I feel like a hit or two, and don’t really keep track. The cartridges, and the juice for the cartridges, come in low, medium, high, and zero nicotine formulations. The highs are actually fairly strong.
We will see.
The problem with most replacement therapies is that they don’t work.
It is like an alcoholic switching from scotch to vodka or beer. Or a meth head switching to coke. Yea there are some benefits I suppose but really The actual health concerns are only a part of it.
I have managed to quit drugs and alcohol for 11 years and nicotine for almost 6 months now. All cold turkey. Somehow dragging out the nico withdrawals with patches and gums just did not make sense to me. At least because in my past trying to cut down on any other drug or drink was useless. Not being able to control the use is the use is the problem. Switching to a patch or a electronic cig will not cure nicotine addiction.
OK. Yes, it may be healthier. I can agree to that possibility.
The greatest thing about quitting drugs,alcohol and cigs is not the health benefits.
It is the freedom from the additions. I feel so liberated now. I can go into bars and parties and whatnot if i want. Hell I have even grown pot and mixed drinksand hung out in smoking rooms in my sobriety. And I am free to leave it alone. It is wonderful. better than the health benefits.
So I am not trying to rain on anyones parade. I just would rather not anyone think of these as an easy way to be freed from the strong talons of nicotine.
Trade in looking for your lighter and smokes for looking for your batteries and replacement cartridges. And tossing spent batteries on the ground rather than cig butts.
Health yes/maybe - Freedom no
Okaaaay. :rolleyes:
Everything I know about e-cigs I learned this morning. But the web site I visited clearly said they were not intended as a means to quit a nicotine addiction. The only thing I don’t like about my nicotine addiction (3 or 4 cigs a day) is the related health issues. I don’t litter and I abstain around anybody who objects, regardless of their reason.
The addiction issue is probably one for another thread, but I’ll add that an addiction that doesn’t bother anyone else, and is legal is certainly less of a problem than, say, a real cigarette. I freely admit to being addicted to caffeine, too. That may or may not be a health problem, I’ve heard things pro an con on that, but it’s certainly legal and not harmful to anyone else, so I don’t see it as a problem that I need to be free of.
Yeah, if I were to try it, it definitely would not be a quit smoking aid. I’m just not in a place to entertain quitting. It’d be purely to save money and improve my lungs.
I hope this thread sticks around for awhile. I’d like to see some Dopers try this out and report back. There are so many people selling these things I have no idea which one to consider trying.
He does have a point, imo, neutron star. I smoked from a very young age (hard to say exactly when I started because it was a slow process but I started trying them at age 10 and it’s safe to say I was very addicted by age 14) until age 25. By about age 17 I started contemplating quitting and by age 19 I desperately wanted to quit. That’s 6 years from 19 to 25 that I spent as a slave to cigarettes which I hated but couldn’t give up. Finally quitting was by far the most liberating experience of my life. I didn’t gain any superhuman cardio endurance, I didn’t care about the saved money or the smell, I didn’t “get my sense of taste back” (that’s a myth if I’ve ever heard one…); I was just free. Probably my #1 nightmare since I quit is that I’m a smoker again.
I imagine that alot of the vendors would say that , but how does it work in the real world. I mean , on another forum , someone mentioned using one on a commercial flight , so do you get any of the , but it looks like a smoke, so it is a smoke type deals?
Declan
I quit smoking one time, for seven months. I eventually decided I was happier smoking and went back. I once had a sputtering vice principal with veins bulging out of his forehead make the same argument to me back in 11th grade after I got caught smoking in the boy’s room for the thousandth time, and it didn’t really affect me then, either.
I’ve only had it for a few days, and I’ve been pretty discreet with it at work because I imagine they’d be assholes about it, and I haven’t really been anywhere else for more than a couple minutes where I couldn’t smoke since then.
Thats what I thought would be the situation. It seems like the Aussies are getting screwed over unregulated tobbacco delivery systems ( sounds like a raytheon missile) and I was only up to about page 15 of a 33 page thread about it.
Anyways , I can’t see these things being more than a novelty until govts get used to the idea that they are going to take a big hit on taxes, assuming that the fluid is sold un regulated, and the anti’s swallowing a big pill about normalizing the look of a cigarette in public places indoors.
If and when Walmart starts selling em, then they will have arrived
Declan
Everybody is different. I do meet the occasional “confirmed” smoker like you. I have a great aunt that feels like you and my mom’s best friend feels like you. The vast majority of smokers I meet, though - and I’ve been bringing up the subject to pretty much all the smokers I’ve met since I decided I wanted to quit at 19 - will admit that they want to quit, usually pretty badly.
I was thinking if and when 20-and-30-somethings decide it’s cool to use them in the club, they will have arrived.
I am not bashing them nutron star
Just don’t sell them as a stop smoking aid.
Well, the government can always step in and slap a tax on something people think is fun. But, I otherwise don’t know what the government would have to do with its popularity and success. The government doesn’t have to approve what’s popular or not.
I could see big tobacco lobbying against it if it starts hitting them in the wallet and they don’t have a cut of it. I’m not sure on what grounds they could lobby against it, but I’m sure they’d come up with something.
What the product needs is more advertising. Man, if I had about $100,000 dollars to spare, I’d make an infomercial, blanket the cheap TV time slots, and retire with millions.
Someone would sue your ass into the stone age when it comes out that atomized nicotine causes you to grow an extra testicle - - even if you’re female. 
When it comes to quitting cigarettes, or any drug, really, different things work for different people. The experiences of you as an individual do not necessarily apply to the whole of the population, and making pronouncements to that effect, especially about something you haven’t ever even seen, let alone tried, is really kind of arrogant.
The first couple times I tried quitting cigarettes, I did it cold turkey. I barely lasted a few hours. It was hell. The only successful time I tried to quit was with the patch. And guess what? It worked. I was off cigarettes, and off the patch, for several months before I decided to start back up. If replacement therapies don’t work, how do you explain that? And how do you explain the millions of people who have quit with patches or gum? Just because cold turkey worked for you, doesn’t mean everyone thinks the same way as you, reacts the same way as you, or holds the same opinions about addiction as you do, or even that they should!
I may have to try one of those things! I don’t know whether it would function as a quitting aid or not, but it couldn’t be any less successful than any of my other attempts to quit have been…
Again, to be fair, nicotine replacement therapy does work for people . . . about 7% of people. Those numbers are dismal enough, IMO, to make the general statement “it doesn’t work.”