My parents, smokers for 50 years, are tentatively curious about the new e-cigs that are on the market. I’m over the moon about this. They’ve never had any real interest in other nicotine type products. I think their grand daughter might be getting through to them!
Anyway, they’ll only like it if it looks & feels like a real cigarette. So I’m leaning towards the volcano & blu brands, which use familiar size cigs in a familiar size pack. I’m wondering about strength & flavor though.
I don’t smoke myself or I’d just test it out. So Straight Dopers - any experience with these brands? How do they taste? How strong are they compared to the real thing?
What should I tell my folks to expect the first time they try this?
Where are you? I believe that e-cigs are illegal or at least very heavily regulated in many jurisdictions. I know they’re illegal in Canada, for example. Check your local regulations.
As a non-smoker, I support e-cigs in general and I wish they were legal here, because they answer so many of the problems with smoking.
I and my folks are all in Ohio. As far as I know, e-cigs are legal in Ohio, although I can’t seem to find a retail store that sells them. I haven’t tried a dedicated tobacco shop though (there’s still a few around.)
Blu offers free shipping though, so it wouldn’t be a problem to order from them. Even if they both were to go through a 25 pack in a week, it’d still be cheaper than what they pay for cigarettes.
Quite a few of my friends have gotten into “vaping” :rolleyes: lately, so I might be able to offer a little bit of information (since they’ve been talking about it nonstop). The majority of them have bought their supplies from Vapor 4 Life; I don’t know how much ecigs vary from company to company. YMMV, of course.
From what I understand, there are no ecigs that taste exactly like regular cigarettes. I’ve tried the “cigarette” flavors they purchased and none of them were even reminiscent of a cigarette. They tasted similar to how pipe tobacco smells, is probably the best I could do.
There are a bunch of non-cigarette flavors that are offered, some are good and some are not so good. I would suggest having them try out a sampler pack and see if they dig any of those.
Ecigs smoke differently than regular cigarettes, too. Either that, or I smoke incorrectly. When you toot off of the ecig, you need to hold it in your mouth, then inhale slowly. It’s a whole thing.
Ecigs also have a buttload of supplies: cartomizers or atomizers that you need to replace or refill, batteries that need to be charged, flavor bottles or extra cartomizers.
The majority of my friends that switched over either don’t smoke regular cigarettes at all, or have cut down significantly. So, that’s a bonus.
Hope that helps.