Electric/electronic cigarettes - does this shit actually work?

desperate question from a pathetic addict.

my friend has pretty much quit using one! only when she's really really nervous in large crowds of people does she even crave real cigarettes.

true pathetic addiction is not having smoked for well over a decade but liking the sound of these.

Would you smoke it while listening to Neil Young's Trans?

I vaguely looked at these but fear they wouldn't be a proper substitute for the rich satisfying experience of sucking death down into my lungs tbh

I wanted to get these when I decided to quit but couldnt find them so I settled for these nictone "mints", which worked really well

introducing the eCigarette!

I quit smoking about 14 months ago with the aid of Swedish snus (I still do one or two micro-teabags of Gotland's a day), but I've tried a nephew's e-cigarette. Yes, they work wonderfully, nice quick nic bump, fairly accurate tobacco smoke flavored mist, and not terribly expensive.

In fact, the only problem with it is a orange led at the tip that lights when the actuator button is pressed. I really had no desire to be conspicuous when I was smoking.

jjustin have you tried "the easy way to quit smoking"? I smoked for over 20 years and it seriously relieved me of that burden in one week. no lie. I got friends for whom it did the same thing.

ball-and-chain free over two years now btw

n fact, the only problem with it is a orange led at the tip that lights when the actuator button is pressed.

how else are people going to know that you live in the future?

what the hell is an ELECTRONIC CIGARETTE

and does it play mp3s

In fact, the only problem with it is a orange led at the tip that lights when the actuator button is pressed. I really had no desire to be conspicuous when I was smoking.

This is weird! I remember reading so many books as a kid where people could not smoke bcz the cherry would have equalled them getting shot, people just standing around avoiding detection and craving a cigarette...why did modern technology not fix this?

Hey Abbott, reading Love in the Time of Cholera has led me to believe that you can smoke with the lit end in your mouth, precisely to avoid detection.

"I vaguely looked at these but fear they wouldn't be a proper substitute for the rich satisfying experience of sucking death down into my lungs tbh"

major lols

i don't smoke much tbh. well, it sort of "flows" in the sense that for weeks i'll probably have one or two per day and then i'll binge for a few weeks. binges being half a pack per day. :-(

They were selling something like this at a cart in the mall around Christmastime (they might still be, I'm not a regular mallgoer). The weird thing was that the kiosk attendents were allowed to use the product in the mall, since it was some sort of a vaporizer and not actually"smoking." I was pretty appalled, to be honest.

j0hn d, i would be interested in hearing about this "the easy way to quit smoking"

in the meantime, i am currently smoking in the future. not bad!

How do you know when to stop? If a cartridge holds between 10-15 cigarettes worth of nicotine, then couldn't you find yourself accidentally taking loads more than when you smoked normal cigarettes?

(Actually, I guess this is less of a problem for people who smoke rollies... I'm just so used to smoking until I get to the end of the cigarette I'd be worried I'd forget to stop if there was no clear delineation.)

American Lung Association tryna ban e-cigs:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2890542/american_lung_association_vs_electronic.html?singlepage=true&cat=5

Similar story to Swedish snus, which is banned elsewhere in the EU, despite the fact that the Swedes have the lowest lung cancer, emphysema, and one of the lowest coronary heart disease rates in the EU.

What the activists don't get is that some people are self-medicating with nicotine for anxiety, aversion to stimuli overload etc. They're not smoking because its "cool", but because it allows them to function in a world we didn't evolve for. Harm reduction strategies like snus or e-cigarettes are fantastic because they allow this minority to self-medicate with less than a tenth of the long term hazard of smoked tobacco.

mm

I tried one of these things a few weeks back when a friend who was over had one he'd imported (theyre not technically legal in Aus and cant be purchase here). I dunno, I found it less than satisfying. I've never liked vape inhaling anyway, and it felt weird and nothingy.

bought one in Paris last weekend. Better than expected although I've "quit" 3 montsh ago and since then have limited myself to social/drink smoking - for these occasions I don't think e-ciggies would do the trick.

also - these are being marketed (at least in France) as a way to smoke in public places (rather than for health issues). I am pretty sceptical that I would be allowed to smoke one of tehse, say, on a plane or in a movie theater. Anyone tried this?

have not had a real analog cigarette in a month thanks to these, which considering i smoked heavily for nearly 20 years is pretty awesome tbh

congrats! - I totally failed to follow up w/you in re "the easy way to quit smoking" but if you're cured then you're cured - if something goes wrong, google that title - it works, I am so grateful to a friend who pointed me at it - can't even believe I don't smoke any more, given how long I did it & how much I liked it.

That book really is amazing. I donated it to a juvenile prison, but I kind of wish I hadn't.

how much do these cost? tempted to try if they aren't too expensive ...

lately I've been pretty baffled by this Nicorette advert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-vlocHqCcA

I am not sure what the point is if not 'you know those moments when you could look really cool if you had a cigarette? How about instead, you look really dumb?'

so far one of the biggest reinforcers was the fact that the first 10 days were still really tough, which since i was still getting nicotine baffled me, and then when i did some research i realized that i was detoxing from all the other useless nasty addictive shit they pack in there to keep you coming back for more. fucking creeped me out so much that its hard to imagine opening that door up again ever.

at the initial outlay, theyre pretty expensive, but considering i was smoking at least a pack a day at $6-7 i figure that im already slightly ahead - and i picked one of the more expensive ones (greensmoke) due to online reviews and whatever.

huh - i was considering quitting about a year ago, then major life suckage happened, and i decided i didn't want to inflict the quitting smoking trauma on top of that.

can these be adapted for use with all my other favorite herbs?

ball-and-chain free over two years now btw

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Thursday, February 25, 2010 10:29 AM (4 months ago) Bookmark

Hell yes! Me too! I think I quit mid 2008. Cold turkey is the best way to go, if you can hack it.

I am puffing on one of these now, they are quite satisfying. I can't wait to try the flavored ones.

What's the deal here, is this stuff safe? The few I've tried were nice and I don't ever crave these days unless it's after dark and I've had a drink or two.

I like when people I'm with whip an e-cig out in a store or movie theater or wherever and just take a few puffs. Your anti-smoking laws are ineffective against these digital beauties!

digital electronic

mine leaks a bit and I'm not sure I'm incredibly happy about that.

i have one of these now and i love it. it subtracts everything i dislike about smoking (imminent death, smelliness, bad breath, waste) and adds vanilla.

a friend has one that's like a really elaborate shisha, very decadent and elegant. makes me want to take up smoking.

Em what kind do you have? I've been using the disposables for about a week now and I kind of love them!

just a regular blu one. i tried a friend's super fancy one and it made me want one. you just press the button and it releases the vapor into your mouth. you don't even have to inhale. crazy

Yeah, I've been getting the blue disposables. Maybe I will check that one out.

I like when people I'm with whip an e-cig out in a store or movie theater or wherever and just take a few puffs. Your anti-smoking laws are ineffective against these digital beauties!

Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau) wrote this at 2013-08-07 17:50:17.000

Does it still make those places smell like a goddamn McDonalds or airport lounge from 1989?

these things subtract everything great about smoking - not giving a fuck, being terrible to yourself, embracing a continuity of cool from the glory days of americana - and leaves you just with the pathetic part, i.e. furtively sucking on an implement at various intervals throughout the day and night like someone with a rare incurable disease

electronic cigarettes remind me of those motorcycles you see these days with roofs on them

They've definitely taken root as a fashion accessory in certain quarters of British society. They are dreadful and look ridiculous, especially in clubs.

they should def make a kazoo noise

I can't understand the appeal to anyone who wasn't a smoker before. For anyone trying to give up the real thing however they're brilliant and I dgaf if they look ridiculous.

Well I just smoke these things in the gaps between smoking real cigarettes anyway. If anything they make it more difficult for me to stop properly, which I used to do fairly regularly. I'd rather a week of cold-turkey suffering than this pretend puffing all the time. For myself, I realise that what I am addicted to is not nicotine itself but the smell and the taste of the best nights of my youth, which is irreplicable.

mr veg has pretty much replaced cigs with one of the fancier models like what you described above, forever ordering little bottles of liquid, spilling liquid, charging batteries and whatnot

kind of a lot of messing about but not having to buy cigs all the time, and the no smell thing def make a difference imo

anyone tried these new sub-ohm ecigs that are out now, in the uk at least? next-level stuff, they're the first ones i've given to hardened smokers where they've said they could see that replacing real cigs. more like an intense bong hit than any of the piddly predecessors, not something to toke constantly but kinda amazing when in the right mood

One of the more infamous internal memos from a tobacco company that was brought to light during the litigation of the late 90s concerned how cigarettes should be considered primarily as "nicotine delivery devices". It seems to me that e-cigs are simply a logical extension of that philosophy.

It is obvious to me that nicotine has effects on its users that cannot be duplicated by any other drug currently known, but that it is also cruelly addictive. Legitimizing e-cigs requires one to ask the question: even if some of the cancerous effects of conventional smoking could be eliminated, are there legitimate reasons for society to encourage addiction to nicotine?

Having both smoked for over a decade in the past and having quit smoking long ago, I still don't feel entirely competent to answer this question. My inclination is to say 'no', but mainly on the grounds that addictive drugs rarely, if ever, repay the psychological and physical cost of addiction, not because I know whether or not nicotine might be an exception to this rule.

to go down that route would mean looking at caffeine, sugar and other addictive substances with low-level consequences. not really sure what the pay-off is for nicotine though - most of the anti-ecig chatter is that it encourages kids to use them, gateway to smoking tobacco, makes smoking seem 'ok', etc. not much about the specific aftereffects of nicotine consumption

if it came out that nicotine in this form was more damaging than currently known i'd move to switch to zero mg fluid without any major fuss. a big part of the pleasure for me is the 'doing something' with my hands, rather than chewing fingernails, picking nose, etc. it's as much about the sensation and taste as it is the effects of the nicotine

I know that e-cigarettes will not be made illegal because there would be no sense in doing so while regular cigarettes are still legal. The main question in my mind is whether or not society should adopt a more tolerant and easy attitude about e-cigs, while maintaining the current harshly disapproving attitude toward traditional cigs.

There are lots of explicit or implicit claims being made about the relative health and safety of vaping compared to smoking and the arguments being made, both pro and con, seem rather dodgy to me. All I know is that there's plenty of money to be made out of nicotine addiction and whereas the commercial interests are obvious, the interests of society are not yet clear at all.

yeah, main thing right needed now are legit tests done to help stem the hearsay on both sides. even then there'll be decades of back-and-forth about it, same with sweetener/aspartame. my flawed take on it is, people have been using the modern form of e-cigs for nearing a decade now and there hasn't been any verifiable health-scandals so i'll take that risk for a) the pleasure i get from it, and b) it's almost certainly less damaging to my health than smoking, at least in the short-term.

but that's more about e-fluid/vaping in general, which does include 0% nicotine. do you feel the same way about nicotine gum and patches?

The patches seem like they are unlikely to be abused by a first time user, but are geared pretty exclusively to feeding a current addiction. I didn't use a patch during my quitting, so I don't have any firsthand knowledge of how effective they would be as a tool for managing withdrawal.

My suspicion is that the patches might help very heavy addicts (two pack a day or higher), if they are managed as part of a fairly structured schedule of withdrawal. For someone like myself, who stayed around half a pack a day most of the time, I am skeptical about their utility, but willing to be convinced.

The nicotine gum seems pretty pointless to me, but again it doesn't seem like a habit one would acquire without already having smoked and becoming an addict beforehand.

Otoh, the e-cigs seem much more likely to become a gateway to first time nicotine use than either the patches or gum.

you've got me thinking now, what are the negatives of unadulterated nicotine addiction, and how do they compare with caffeine, sugar, aspertame, etc. gona look into it and report back

you're probably right about the gateway thing, to a degree. if i weren't a smoker when the whole flavoured ecig thing came about, i'd have certainly gone for them. maybe with nicotine, maybe not - the whole coughy phlegmy smelly gunk thing about smoking was always a major drawback for me, stopped me smoking more than i otherwise would.

the only noticeable side effects so far was when i switched to these sub-ohm ecigs a couple of weeks back. basically they give out a intense blast of vapour, like a bong version of vaping, so you're taking in a more concentrated hot of nicotine than with the usual types. got a bit woozy to start with and couldn't use it too much but found myself having horrifying nightmares for a few days, can't be certain they were linked to this but felt like it was. gone now, mind

> The patches seem like they are unlikely to be abused by a first time user, but are geared pretty exclusively to feeding a current addiction

I'm actually quite surprised given the prevalence of recreational drug use, as well as nicotine cited as a main reason smokers like smoking, that patches and gums don't seem to be used much by nicotine first-timers.

The effects of nicotine are sort of undramatic. It won't make you high, stoked, ecstatic, or stupidly oblivious. It is more of a mood smoother, taking the edge off anxiety or giving you a slight boost when you're tired. You tend to learn what nicotine does only after you've started to use it.

Cigarettes were never sold to first-timers based on the drug effects of nicotine. Cigarettes were always sold based on changing your image. You become a grown-up, a rebel, a sophisticate, or some other glamorous role by lighting up or chawing down.

Aimless, are your concerns based specifically on nicotine, or on the abstract idea of an addictive drug given mainstream acceptance?

afaics, nicotine doesn't compromise one's ability to function in society, so long as one is getting one's habit fed at appropriate intervals. It doesn't seem particularly debilitating on its own. What bothers me most is that the business model of suppliers of addictive drugs requires them to create addicts and once an addict is created they are not in control of their addiction. The most promising raw material from which to create addicts are young people with poor judgment and people in mental distress. Once you're inside an addiction it takes vast energy to get out again.

It is all pretty directly analogous to parasites, where the drug supplier is a parasite upon the addict, and instead of blood or some other food, the supplier sucks money into itself, which represents a certain amount of the addict's life. Even if it turns out that the effects on the addict's health are minimal when nicotine is divorced from the other toxic compounds in tobacco, this business model is not a good thing for those on either end of the transaction.

I know addiction and drugs will always be an aspect of society. The question is one of management, not eradication, which is why the War on Drugs was always doomed to fail. War seeks victory and conquest, but that was never a realistic option. Same with e-cigs and nicotine. The only questions are how to manage them properly.

My emerging sense is that if e-cigs genuinely eliminate the main health risks of smoking, then the best approach is limiting their availability and appeal to the young, taxing them, but at a lower rate than regular cigs, and presenting a general social attitude of moderate disapproval of nicotine addiction and great disdain for the profiteers who supply it. That ought to be about right. But only if e-cigs prove to be much safer than cigarettes.

If e-cigs genuinely eliminate the health risks of smoking, why should nicotine be viewed any differently than caffeine?

i guess i see it as a tool more than a liability. paracetamol fixes headaches, nicotine relaxes, caffeine gives an energy boost. thought same in my teenage years, lsd every few months for a mind reboot, whizz to stay up doing coursework etc. never been all that skittish about drugs, (still bust out the beta blockers, valium, modafinil, etc) and never had any regrets. except xenical. xenical was bad.

by bust out i mean 'do once every few months'. but yeah anyway, if anyone's thinking of getting a sub-ohm battery & tank i totally recommend it. ecig era v2.0 type shit

why should nicotine be viewed any differently than caffeine?

Addictive quality of the two drugs are not very comparable.

Why not? They are quite similar in their effect on the brain. If there are no health risks from being addicted to nicotine then what is the problem? Why do we need society to "disapprove" of one and not the other?

i have a friend who's a total vaping geek. carries around this thing with a light that looks like a gameboy and fills the whole room with steam. fuckin' weird

Firstly, there is a qualitative difference between "eliminat[ing] the main health risks of smoking", which is what I said, and "no health risks", which is what the Colonel thinks I was talking about. If we are speaking of zero health risk, as in none, absolutely risk free, no matter how much is taken, then I'm certainly willing to reconsider.

Secondly, I surmise the Colonel has never seriously tried to quit a nicotine addiction, or if he has, then I would surmise that he failed, is still addicted and is rationalizing his failure by minimizing his addiction. These are, of course, guesses only and not to be used for investment purposes. He can provide the facts, if he wishes to.

i don't know if an addiction to something with minimal health risks is that much of a doomsday situation.

here's what i've found out so far. other than nicotine, e-fluid has 3 components: flavouring, propylene glycol (used in ice cream) and vegetable glycerin (used in low-fat cookies). they're all deemed safe for human consumption, though there are reports that propylene glycol can cause respiratory inflammation and increase asthma risk (not something i or other people i know who use e-cigs have noticed).

looking at pure nicotine, there's one fuzzy study saying it increases the risk of cancer (contradicted by cancer rates of snus users in sweden and a bunch of other studies), and that pregnant women should avoid it. not much else.

overall, it seems about as bad eating some brie then riding a bike through a town centre.

if the issue here is about addiction, then as said above, we'd need to look just as hard at caffeine, sugar, fat in food and a whole host of other things that make life worth living.

broken link, sorry: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22751349

if the issue here is about addiction, then as said above, we'd need to look just as hard at caffeine, sugar, fat in food

Count me as highly skeptical of the claim that any of these are comparably as addictive as nicotine.

Just in passing, I don't think a human infant could possibly grow up healthy without any fat in its diet. Fat plays an absolutely crucial role in brain and nerve development. There is no clear threshold where fat transitions from a critical element that is utterly necessary to health, to where it is an addictive substance. You can hardly say the same of nicotine.

they're all deemed safe for human consumption

Consumption meaning eating/digesting, right? There has to be a difference between eating and inhaling. I'd imagine if you inhaled plenty of food that was 'safe for consumption' it would be a dangerous thing to do.

Consumption meaning eating/digesting, right? There has to be a difference between eating and inhaling. I'd imagine if you inhaled plenty of food that was 'safe for consumption' it would be a dangerous thing to do.

possibly yeah, i'm no scientist so i couldn't speculate. think we can agree the proper tests on it all are long overdue, til then it just means more debates like this where no one is really sure either way

i have heard some talk about how when certain chemicals in e-fluid are burned at a certain high rate they convert into a substance more damaging than previously. this is more for 'dripping' and this sub-ohm stuff

Count me as highly skeptical of the claim that any of these are comparably as addictive as nicotine.

but why would it matter when the proven negative side effects of consuming unadulterated nicotine are close to nil?

the damaging side effects of consuming above average amounts of fat and sugar are clear. the damaging side effects of consuming above average levels of nicotine are fuzzy at best.

There is no clear threshold where fat transitions from a critical element that is utterly necessary to health, to where it is an addictive substance.

maybe not a clear threshold, but there's research saying fat is addictive: http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/12December/Pages/High-fat-food-addictive.aspx

to be clear, when i said 'proper tests on it all are long overdue' i mean tests on the other chemicals in e-fluid, which could feasibly turn out to be damaging in the same way the various chemicals in cigarettes are. and could kill my concept of 0mg fluid as the 'untouchable toke'.

but i'm talking specifically about nicotine with aimless, covering gum, snus, patches, etc. also, i should clarify i mean 'proven physical side effects', because psychological side effects are a whole different issue

Aimless is being pretty disingenuous at best.

Sorry for writing "no health risks" when I meant "no significant health risks" which I don't think is different to "eliminating the main health risks of smoking". I don't think it changes anything though. You are not being consistent. You want zero zero zero health risks before you will countenance nicotine use, which I was comparing to caffeine, which itself does not have zero health risks and IME is perhaps not as addictive as nicotine (although I don't know how you measure this) but I don't think anyone would try to say it's not an addictive substance.

As for your "surmising", I could surmise a few things about you from that paragraph, but that wouldn't be fair would it? The facts are this if you must know - I did smoke regularly in my youth, gave it up for a year or 2 and since then I occasionally smoke cigarettes or e-cigs when I'm drinking alcohol. I'm fully aware of how addictive nicotine is and how hard it is to give up. I suppose you'll say that the fact I smoke at all means I'm still addicted and I'm in denial or something. Maybe that's true to some degree, I do crave nicotine a bit when I've had a couple of pints, but I don't experience that in other situations.

If there are no health risks from being addicted to nicotine then what is the problem? Why do we need society to "disapprove" of one and not the other?

because nicotine has an established, legal, alternative form of delivery that has decades of cool mythology attached to it and is pretty much guaranteed to give you cancer

coffee does not

you might have a point with sugar though

fingers crossed, nicotine also now has an established, legal, alternative form of delivery that has a decade of cool mythology attached to it and is pretty much guaranteed to not give you cancer.

or so i hope. even if not, i'd probably weigh it up and carry on using this stuff, with an eye toward cutting nicotine levels down, and eventually getting to 0mg

ymmv re: 'cool mythology'. someone on ilx once described e-cig users (loathe to use the word 'vapers') as something like "overweight aspie rubes who think they're in the matrix". really key to drag the whole thing away from these schmoes, make it more ordinary and hum-drum

caffeine, which... is perhaps not as addictive as nicotine (although I don't know how you measure this)

Interesting question. I suggest one might decide by comparing what percentage of attempts made to quit each substance end in failure after a certain amount of time, for example a week, a month or a year. You could add a lot of variables to that model to refine it, but that would form a useful basis.

There is no way caffeine is addictive as nicotine surely.

(and I wonder if codeine is more addctive than both? hm. Whats with all the eines).

codeine is definitely addictive yeah, but it'd be more useful to look beyond the level of addictiveness and focus on real-life side effects. codeine definitely has some nasty side effects: temp amnesia & debilitating comedown; caffeine gives that anxious fretfulness and inability to sleep; non-cigarette nicotine has... nothing overtly obvious.

i'm being a bit devil's advocate here, but beyond this abstract concept of addictiveness how does it impact on one's everyday life? not that much, as far as i can tell

You are presuming a well-fed nicotine addiction. The moment you stop feeding it, there are definite real world impacts.

true, but the only reason you've given to stop feeding it is 'addiction' in and of itself. the reasons to feed it are similar to those of most pleasures (alcohol, food, caffeine etc) but with side effects that appear to be less harmful. my main point here is that you're not giving a very convincing argument for your belief that society shouldn't have a "tolerant and easy attitude about ecigs"

As any cigarette smoker can tell you, there come times when feeding your addiction stops temporarily, not because you reasoned yourself into that position, but because your supply has been used up or unexpected exigencies intervene. That is when comes home to you what addiction really means.

caffeine and alcohol are quite different in that it's not this constant treadmill of consumption. mentally, nicotine is a drain because it's always hanging around in your mind, one cig's worth of it doesn't last long, you're always looking forward to the next one.

granted there are real-deal alcoholics and people who drink 8 cups of coffee a day, but for people who have these things under control they're not thinking about the next cup of coffee or the next beer on a near constant basis. but the vast majority of people who are addicted to nicotine are thinking about the next time they'll get to have a lil' drag, maybe not consciously, but as a kind of constant companion. and this possibly even as much as the long-term health benefits is why i'm so glad i stopped smoking - to be free of this little voice perched on my shoulder, always there, always suggesting i find another little moment to indulge in my little pleasure.

both otm. Beware of rationalizing addiction, it's one of the main ways a substance can control you. It can be a slippery slope.

"but adam, you eat FOOD all the time, should i not be judging you for that??"

apologies, been away a few days. been thinking about this thread a bit, sorry for epic post.

so i actually spent last weekend with a guy who has a similar fear of addiction as the one expressed in this thread. he's obsessed with getting his nicotine intake down to the lowest possible level, mixing 0mg with 0.6mg to get it to 0.2mg, comes across as very concerned about being controlled by a substance. most everyone else rolled their eyes and told him to lighten up but it was interesting to see them used as a tool to reduce nicotine addiction. it does seem to be the natural progression for most ecig users to reduce their intake over time, especially after the first few weeks/months.

and i dunno, i think it's ok to look at things in a rational way. it's fine to have a glass of wine at the end of a day's work, it's fine to have a burger after a few days of eating healthily, and similarly i think it's fine to use an ecig as the pleasure i get from it (and it is pleasurable, let's not go down the route of claiming it's fake) outweigh the costs.

as for the foreboding 'slippery slope', where does this particular slope lead to? they're not like other vices. with cigs, it's hammering away at your health, alcohol same with added mental and social problems, sugar & fatty foods it's health again, heroin it's being outside the law and the chaos that comes with that. ecigs are cheap, legal & have no notable impact on health. as for supply running out, the only time i can see that happening is if it's made illegal, which is unlikely, or if i get on long plane journey and even then it's hardly a living hell, just a few hours of mild frustration.

there's a bit of a one-size-fits-all attitude in some of the above posts. most the smokers i know (and myself) are/were casual, around 5 a day for years, so the thing about "nicotine always hanging around in your mind" isn't an issue for everyone, nowhere near. "one cig's worth of it doesn't last long" is interesting as people don't generally use ecigs like cigarettes, it's not like sitting down for five minutes sucking away, it's spread over a longer period of time, takes much longer to consume the equivalent amount of nicotine. (btw is 8 cups of coffee deemed out of control? i know plenty of people who have more. when im working i'll have a cup of tea or diet coke every 90 mins or so, which points to an addiction/'constant companion' but it's not something i beat myself up over.)

out of interest, when you guys (tracer, aimless) were smokers how many did you have a day? and how did you quit? with a lot of ex-smokers there's a zealous 'everything to do with cigarettes is evil' attitude. and that's mostly true, most things about cigarettes are nasty, but people still do it. and they do it for the relaxing, mind-focusing effects of nicotine. if we get rid of the shite elements, then what's left isn't that bad. obv if you hate the idea of being reliant on something then maybe it is, but if you apply that across the board you'll be living a cold austere not-much-fun life, imo.

so yeah, a lot of the doomsday situations given above seem a bit thin to me. obviously i'm biased because i enjoy using these things but on the off-chance someone reads this thread and leaves thinking 'oh, might as well stick with my bensons', well, here's the other side of the coin.

and finally (again sorry for length, i'm spitballing a bit here for an article) i've also come across some other stuff lately, namely that nicotine can be helpful when it comes to dementia, alzheimers, tourettes, and depression. plus a bunch of other things such as parkinsons, schizophrenia, weight loss, blood vessel growth etc. and some scientists claim it isn't addictive at all, though i'd need to hear more about that. (i didn't come here to stan for nicotine btw, just wanted a cheery chat about a shiny new 21st century hobby if uh, anyone still fancies that)

i smoked 10-12 a day, never in the mornings. i quit cold turkey. after a few weeks i found myself more "relaxed" and "mind-focused" than i had in years. there are better hobbies than nicotine consumption, surely? especially when your hobby leads to a few hours of mild frustration when you can't have your little crutch?

i actually don't fear e-cigs as much as i used to. they look so direly stupid it's hard to imagine kids taking them up from scratch.

My habit started out with hand-rolled cigarettes, then moved over to store-bought non-filter Camels. It tended to stay in the vicinity of 10-15 a day. I tapered off over about 4 months, down to about 5-6 a day before I quit. Quitting still was a bit like bear-wrestling for the first three weeks or so, after which it gradually improved.