The future of smoking?

[Shwaz]

It's been almost 2 months since I quit smoking... something I thought might never happen. I had tried cold turkey before and could never fully kick the habit. At the beginning of the year I started noticing a trend with some of the regulars in the smoking area where I work. E-Cigs.

At first I thought it was pretty goofy. A little device that looks like a pen that you suck water vapor from. I thought this would the next failure in a long line of quit smoking shannanigans just like the gum and the patch and they would all come running back to Marlboro within days... but after a couple months they were still using the 'pen smokes', not gaining weight satisfied and tobacco free.

It made me look at the idea a little closer. I did a lot of research around the web and in talking with people who use them. The more I learned the more it made sense that if this works it's the future of nicotine consumption.

I scoured the web for product reviews on each different brand. I wanted the closest thing to an actual cigarette and where I could of course save some money. I decided to purchase the Blu-Cig http://www.blucigs.com/ which seemed to have the best reviews towards what I was looking for.

I also found a ton of independent research companies that were just as skeptical as me and found great success.

I paid $60 for the starter kit and another $20 for refill  cartridges. At first drag you immediately realize that is not an exact match... but far from terrible. You also notice that it calms not only nicotine withdraw but also oral fixations and regular smoking rituals( i.e while driving and regular breaks at work).

Overall it was a quick transition and so far I've enjoyed all the regulars positives of quitting, increased energy, better sleep at night, food tasting better etc. etc. etc. but the best part is I didn't have go through any torture, weight gain or suicide inspiring medications.

If you're a smoker and you haven't tried the e-cigs I highly recommend them. I don't think it will be too long before tobacco is outlawed and e-cigs are the norm.

[buckethead]

Thanks for posting this. I quit years ago but it's always good to see new innovations that can help others achieve that goal.

I had a cold/flu one year that kept me from enjoying a smoke for about two weeks. It was so hard to smoke, I didn't do it.

After I got past the cough, I just wondered "why not just quit now?"

So I did.

[uptowngirl]

I have also been looking at these, think I will give it a try- Thanks!

[Dog Walker]

Quit smoking over 40 years ago.  Although not a heavy or long time smoker, it was one of the hardest things I've ever done.  My profound sympathies to anyone who is going through the effort.  Hang in there, it is well worth the effort.  If you backslide, don't give up, just try again.

[Shwaz]

I started thinking about it today... my original plan was to use the e-cigs to ween my self off of nicotine and then work my way off the e-cigs. Now I may just keep using these indefinitely. It's most likely as bad for your health as a cup of coffee.

[mtraininjax]

The future of smoking is sure death.

[buckethead]

The future of smoking is sure death.

The cost of living is dying.

[Dog Walker]

The future of smoking is sure death.

The cost of living is dying.

And the cost of dying that way is really high!

[Jason]

"Staying healthy is merely the slowest most drawn out way to die."

- unknown




The e-cigs seemed kind gimmiky at first but are gaining steam.  I guess they actually work.

[Dog Walker]

The FDA is starting to talk about regulating e-cigs as drug delivery devices.

[Shwaz]

The FDA is starting to talk about regulating e-cigs as drug delivery devices.

They probably should. Right now teenagers can  buy them because they're not regulated and that's a slippery slope. I've also read a few articles bashing e-cigs because some say they're not 100% proven to be safe. I would imagine that agenda is being pushed by big tobacco as well as the push for regulation and in some case the push for banning e-cigs altogether.

In the meantime Katherine Heigl knows what's up!.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/katherine-heigl-the-crazy_n_749616.html

[urbanlibertarian]

Here are 2 articles about the regulation of e-cigarettes for Reason.com's Hit and Run blog:

http://reason.com/blog/2010/01/15/federal-judge-rebukes-fda-for

Federal Judge Rebukes FDA for Seizing E-Cigarettes

Jacob Sullum | January 15, 2010

Yesterday a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction to electronic cigarette manufacturers who are fighting the Food and Drug Administration's seizure of their products as "an unapproved drug-device combination." U.S. District Judge Richard Leon concluded that the two companies, NJOY and Smoking Everywhere, have a substantial likelihood of prevailing against the FDA's claim that it has authority over e-cigarettes under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). Leon suggested that e-cigarettes, battery-powered devices that deliver nicotine vapor, instead are covered by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, the 2008 law that authorized the FDA to regulate conventional cigarettes and other tobacco products. The act defines a tobacco product as "any product made or derived from tobacco that is intended for human consumption." Since the nicotine in e-cigarettes is derived from tobacco, this broad definition certainly seems to fit. More to the point, e-cigarettes are marketed as a smoke-free alternative to cigarettes, not as a medicine or even as a smoking cessation tool.

The FDA argued that e-cigarettes qualify as drug delivery devices under the FDCA because they are intended to affect the structure or function of the human body. Leon noted that the agency had used the same argument when it unsuccessfully tried to assert authority over conventional cigarettes under the FDCA, a gambit that was shot down by the Supreme Court:

This case appears to be yet another example of FDA's aggressive efforts to regulate recreational tobacco products as drugs or devices under the FDCA. Ironically, notwithstanding that Congress has now taken the unprecedented step of granting FDA jurisdiction over those products, FDA remains undeterred. Unfortunately, its tenacious drive to maximize its regulatory power has resulted in its advocacy of an interpretation of the relevant law that I find, at first blush, to be unreasonable and unacceptable.

Leon also was not impressed by the FDA's argument that the public health benefit from blocking importation of e-cigarettes outweighs the costs imposed on the industry:

"While FDA's interest in protecting public health and safety is, in the abstract, paramount to plaintiffs' purely economic interests, given the particular facts and circumstances of this case, I am not convinced that the threat to the public interest in general or to third parties in particular is as great as FDA suggests. Together, both Smoking Everywhere and NJOY have already sold hundreds of thousands of electronic cigarettes, yet FDA cites no evidence that those electronic cigarettes have endangered anyone. Nor has FDA cited any evidence that electronic cigarettes are any more an immediate threat to public health and safety than traditional cigarettes, which are readily available to the public."

In fact, as I've noted before, there is no question that puffing on a smoke-free e-cigarette is much less hazardous than lighting tobacco (or anything else) on fire and sucking the combustion products into your lungs. This is a point so obvious that only the FDA and a certain brand of zero-tolerance anti-tobacco activist would try to deny it. Assuming that e-cigarettes do end up being regulating under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, Michael Siegel argues, the law allows them to remain on the market as a pre-existing tobacco product, provided their manufacturers stop talking about (or implying) their safety advantages. Under one of the law's many destructive, consumer-hostile provisions, that sort of comparison would render e-cigarettes a "modified risk tobacco product," meaning they could not be sold until their manufacturers had met a prohibitive burden of proof.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/06/23/new-e-cigarette-menace-you-can

New E-Cig Menace: You Can Put Your Weed in There

Jacob Sullum | June 23, 2010

John Banzhaf, founder and executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, is irrationally and irredeemably opposed to one action that shows real promise for reducing smoking and improving health: the use of electronic cigarettes, which deliver nicotine vapor without tobacco or combustion products. Why does Banzhaf hate e-cigarettes so much? A few reasons spring to mind:

1. They look like real cigarettes.

2. They offer smokers a way to "light up" in places covered by the smoking bans that Banzhaf has been pushing since the 1960s.

3. They let people get their nicotine fix without risking lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disase.

4. They are not approved by the FDA.

Now Banzhaf is offering a new reason to fear e-cigarettes:

"To the many dangers the FDA has already reported with e-cigarettes—deadly and addictive nicotine, carcinogens and other toxic chemicals released into the air, possibly serving as "training wheels" to entice young teens into smoking, and threats to nonusers standing nearby—add the many problems posed by inhaling at least three different "potent" strains of marijuana."

Banzhaf is referring to Vapor Rush, an e-cigarette that replaces nicotine with cartridges containing a cannabis-based solution. According to the distributor's website, the product is available at medical marijuana dispensaries in California, including the Farmacy in Venice and the Harborside Health Center in Oakland. Banzhaf does not specify any of the "many problems" posed by this innovative product, which gives patients a highly portable way to avoid combustion products while taking their medicine. And I am not just saying that in the hope of receiving a free sample. More here.

In related marijuana-extract news, the British company GW Pharmaceuticals finally has received permission to sell Sativex, its oral cannabis spray, in the U.K. for treatment of muscle spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis. Canadian regulators approved the use of Sativex to treat neuropathic pain in 2005, and the company is seeking clearance in the U.S. as well.