Slick smokeless cigarettes suck (Toronto Star)

[Johnsky]

HealthZone.ca - News & Features - Slick smokeless cigarettes suck

It's hard and slick, tastes icky and keeps slipping out of my mouth.
The electric cigarette will never replace my du Mauriers.
As a sensory and tactile experience – to say nothing of the nicotine kick – these vapour-puff- emitting gizmos will never replace good old rolled tobacco, except maybe among the constituency of want-to-quit smokers who've already gone to the ultra-lite side, which is like sucking on a straw.
There is an aesthetic to smoking that's unfathomable to those who've never had the habit, never known the pleasure of striking match to fragrant weed and inhaling a delicious lungful.

More trash talk from another fundamentalist cigarette smoker... ah well, at least the embedded video on the right shows the e-cigs in a positive light.

... and we all know today's general public would rather watch their news than actually use their brains and read it.


They mention retailers in Toronto have begun stocking these... who are these retailers? I haven't seen them.

Either way, you're saving money by buying online with the prices they're quoting in the video.

 

[jamie]

More trash talk from another fundamentalist cigarette smoker...

Maybe. But I can appreciate some of her comments and they need to be said and read:

What's not often mentioned is how the antismoking crusade has also been about class warfare – stigmatizing a segment of the population, those who stubbornly persist in their foul pleasure, when we are endlessly reminded of studies showing smokers are less educated and in lower income brackets.

Put bluntly, more poor people smoke.

Now we have some municipalities – such as Hamilton – threatening to ban smoking in public housing. The smoke police don't quite have the nerve yet to come stomping into a private residence to rip that cigarette out of your mouth, not the middle-class-and-up owner or tenant anyway. But welfare recipients are apparently easy targets.

 

[strayling]

I'm devastated to find out how wrong I am to enjoy vaping more than smoking. Oh, wait, no I'm not.

The author of this piece is as much of a neophobe as the anti-smoking zealots on the other side of the fence. Her taste in music probably sucks too.

 

[TropicalBob]

OK, so this isn't a cheerleader piece. It's still the best piece of writing yet on what's happening with smokers and e-smokers. This woman is GOOD. And most of what she says is dead-on. She's gone in print with some very interesting observations. The video is, as said, quite favorable to e-smoking.

Her opinion of e-smoking is probably one a majority of present cigarette smokers would share. It would be interesting if every present smoker could be given a free e-smoking starter kit. But ... I bet at least 8 out of 10 of those starter kits would be trashed in a day to a week.

My first impression of e-smoking was just like hers. The vapor tasted like stale air in a cigar-filled room. The thing is hard, awkward, can't be held properly in the teeth, is cold and slick. Nothing like the good old cigarette. And it requires more care than a week-old baby. This is smoking bliss? But if you stick with it long enough, it becomes your reality.

 

[strayling]

Gotta disagree with you about "smoking bliss" Tropical Bob, but that's ok because no two people's tastes are going to be the same. I agree that this piece was on the whole more good than bad but I wouldn't say that this woman is GOOD except in the sense of being opinionated enough to write opinion pieces. It seems to me that she's decided to like the idea of vaping but dislike the current state of the art simply in order to be a contrarian, and I have little patience for that.

 

[Vicks Vap-oh-Yeah]

My first impression of e-smoking was just like hers. The vapor tasted like stale air in a cigar-filled room. The thing is hard, awkward, can't be held properly in the teeth, is cold and slick. Nothing like the good old cigarette. And it requires more care than a week-old baby. This is smoking bliss? But if you stick with it long enough, it becomes your reality.

At least she tried it - didn't just bash it out of hand... But my experience differs from yours - While growing up my grandfather smoked a pipe full of very sweet, fragrant tobacco - I fell in love with the vanilla juice, which reminds me of the way the house smelled when he came to visit - and the smoke is slightly sweet in the mouth, whereas regular cigarette smoke was always harsh to me... I loved the vapor since the first (well, ok, 2nd or 3rd) puff.

 

[HK45]

Sad to say, but eventually, this poster will be grateful to suck on a straw... for oxygen, just as I was until I started e-cigs. :-(. The rapidity of improvement is nothing short of amazing! ;-)

 

[CssReb]

Gotta disagree with you about "smoking bliss" Tropical Bob, but that's ok because no two people's tastes are going to be the same. I agree that this piece was on the whole more good than bad but I wouldn't say that this woman is GOOD except in the sense of being opinionated enough to write opinion pieces. It seems to me that she's decided to like the idea of vaping but dislike the current state of the art simply in order to be a contrarian, and I have little patience for that.

And it requires more care than a week-old baby. This is smoking bliss?

Think it was meant as a sarcastic question

 

[SilverEagleBW]

"These fakes are like having sex with a blow-up doll."

How does she know this?,,,,,,,,,,,LMAO

 

[CssReb]

"These fakes are like having sex with a blow-up doll."

How does she know this?,,,,,,,,,,,LMAO

LMAO SilverEagle ^5

 

[taukimada]

i haven't read the whole article yet (its up in another tab while i read up here first...

but the blurb that was posted here i can understand her problems... and sadly.. she is right..

There is an aesthetic to smoking that's unfathomable to those who've never had the habit, never known the pleasure of striking match to fragrant weed and inhaling a delicious lungful.

her problem is that she's like me... i love my ecigs.. and i DO now have the desire to fully switch.. dont ever get that part wrong fro me.. what makes it hard?

just put that quote in for me... i still enjoy my analogs.. when i fully put the analogs away for good.. im gonna have a good long cry at the non-usage of my multiple zippos

 

[Nuck]

The attached video is very positive. If that is a promise of things to come we're in good shape.

 

[angel.white]

im gonna have a good long cry at the non-usage of my multiple zippos

That has also crossed my mind.

 

[Johnsky]

Luckily for me, I get plenty of use out of my zippos lighting my butane soldering iron about 30 times a day... I really ought to just leave it running when I'm working.

For the rest of you... there's always candles and incense... if that's any consolation.


lol, I can envision an e-cig convention, everyone sitting around a table vaping and fidgeting with lighters, constantly re-lighting candles.

 

[Grody]

I'd have to agree with Bob.

One thing I've noticed about e-smoking is how different my experience can be from one device to the next, or even one minute to the next on the same device.

For example, my Janty Dura didn't seem to give me a lot of vapour at all for the first few days. I couldn't feel it, the taste was bland, and it wasn't satisfying at all. (The carts also leaked all over the place) Then I got some liquid, filled up a cart, and I had that thing blazing for 3 days. Huge amounts of smoke, good throat hit, very satisfying. (For a limited time, as I had to change the batteries constantly to retain the same level of performance, and keep the carts topped off.) Then both atomizers burned out, along with one of the batteries, and here I am with no Dura, waiting for replacement parts.

So I think there's going to be a huge difference in opinion with one smoker who tries a fully charged, fully functional, fully topped up e-cig. And someone who tries one with a low battery, dry cart, smelly atomizer, etc. There's also the technique of getting the most vapour out of your device, which I myself would like to be working on. But I have to baby my Pilot right now, because I only have one atomizer left, and it tastes like dog crap.

So who knows why this woman didn't enjoy her first e-cig experience. Maybe the battery was low, the cart was dry, she was sucking too hard, no primer puff, etc, etc, etc. Or maybe she just likes her regular cigarettes, and e-cigs aren't for her.

There will be a lot of smokers who have a negative experience with the e-cig, especially with all the problems and low quality devices out there right now.

I'm going to get my mother on them, but I'm going to wait until I find the perfect device for her, and the perfect system and technique. She's 65 years old, so she's not going to be filling cartridges, blowing out atomizers, dripping, sending back batteries, searching forums, etc.

I'll just fill a bunch of carts for her, get her extra batteries, atomizers, and check on her every day to make sure it's working properly. If I just dropped a starter kit off at her house, it'd be in a drawer within a day or two, and she'd be back on her regular smokes.

Which is what's going to happen with a lot of people until better and easier to use e-cigs come out.

 

[strayling]

Think it was meant as a sarcastic question

Hence my disagreement. Sarcasm's all well and good, but it's no replacement for knowing what you're talking about. I hope she does a bit more research and writes a follow-up.

 

[strayling]

"These fakes are like having sex with a blow-up doll."

How does she know this?,,,,,,,,,,,LMAO

Her husband told her?

 

[angel.white]

lol, I can envision an e-cig convention, everyone sitting around a table vaping and fidgeting with lighters, constantly re-lighting candles.

That gave me a good chuckle.

 

[TropicalBob]

Let me make one thing clear: E-smoking has improved quite a bit since I began in January 2008. At that time, there was .. basically .. cheap E-Cig junk to order online. No RY4. No tasty cappuccino flavor. Just greasy liquids and carts that tasted terrible and ruined atomizers.

My present favorite, the Janty Kissbox, is quite an improvement over the trash barrel of used and tossed e-smoking devices under my desk.

But anyone who thinks today's models are any kind of satisfying end-all smoking alternative is short-sighted. If these are allowed to evolve for another few years, we won't recognize what electronic smoking becomes. It CAN closely replicate smoking a tobacco product. It CAN match with nicotine kick (and the addition of harmine and other tobacco non-carcinogenic substances to the liquid). It can be made of something other than hard metal, so it's lighter and feels more like a traditional cigarette. Any specific taste can be made available in liquid to vaporize. And it can assuredly be proven to be far safer than using tobacco.

But it doesn't look as if this generation of e-devices will get out of infancy. I view that as a travesty. I've come to depend on e-cigs to get me through daily cravings for real cigarettes. I do not find this "easy" in any way. It is far, far from "smoking bliss" to me. Light years from it. To those who get full satisfaction with today's e-cigs, congratulations. Do not count me among that group. To the others .. imagine how much better these could be if allowed to grow up.

 

[Nuck]

There are many countries in the western world where e-cigs will mature. I've posted the financial numbers before for Canada (tax revenue vs social costs) but this can be applied to any country with socialized medicine.

There is a overwhelming monetary incentive for the rest of the western governments, with socialized medicine, to promote the development of safe e-cigs and their use. Anyone that claims that tobacco taxes are enough to cover the costs of smoking is grossly mistaken.

The US is pretty unique in the power that it gives special interest lobbies. They are also only 5% of the worlds population. E-cigs may be in their infancy, but aside from some growing pains while real peer-reviewed tests are demanded and performed, the future is quite bright in most of the developed world.