Cig-a-likes...

[Steve Duggan]

cig-a-likes were just a gateway vape for me, once i realized that this could work for me then i started doing research. I like them being around =-D


my2cents

 

[Johnnie Price]

The only thing more hated than cig-alikes and minis around here is automatics.

I love my mini. Plenty of flavor and vapor for me, and I can hold it in my teeth while working. I've been a meter reader and now a process server. Manuals and fat batteries don't work too well when you're in and out of a car for 8 hours a day, nor while doing 2 hours of paperwork when you get home. At least, they don't for me.

I love my Echo as well. Perfect for those long commutes to work or home, and while sitting here relaxing.

But really, why does it even matter?

 

[bazmonkey]

The only thing more hated than cig-alikes and minis around here is automatics.

Love 'em both. The analog cigarettes I knew and loved for years... they were mini and auto, too!

I'm well in the love-my-mini camp. I didn't need a pack of cigarettes to last me more than a day, and I don't need a PV to do that, either. My on-the-go setup is a metal cigarette case full of cartos and the PCC with two batteries. I don't know about you guys, but I can't go through a mini battery faster than it can charge unless that's pretty much all I'm doing. At work or on the go there's enough breaks that I've never come close to outpacing the PCC.

I'm gonna get smacked for this one day, but I like cartos, too. How else can I have this many flavors conveniently on-hand? I can drip as many flavs as I want but that's not happening while I walk around Oakland. I can have a huge tank but now I'm either committing to vaping a single flavor all day or bringing several flavors in separate tanks, totaling more liquid than I could possibly enjoy at once. It would be like carrying not just a pack of smokes but the whole carton. Sure, you can smoke for a week off that if you have to... but you were just going to work for the day, remember?

At home I have big batteries and larger clearos of the usual favorites, but still find myself using the cartos on them anyway.

Upkeep is much easier. I don't clean any parts. No tools are required at any point. It's not supposed to be a hobby!

Plus, I'm of the rare dying breed of men that gets out-and-about often without a backpack or bag. It's gotta fit in a pocket. No, no lanyards. Nothing says "I need this chemical crutch" more than a huge mod hanging on your neck like it's an oxygen machine.

And I don't think I want to get to the point that the vapor I get out of a mini isn't good enough for me. This was all to get out of habits, not get into new ones.

 

[UncleChuck]

It's not supposed to be a hobby!

I think this plays a part in who likes cigalikes too.

Vaping is whatever you want it to be. If you are just vaping to quit smoking, or to still get nicotine with less danger, cigalikes will most likely be fine.

But a lot of people, including me, DO treat vaping like a hobby. Kind of the same way I treated tobacco. I was addicted to cigarettes. But tobacco consumption was a hobby. I smoked Hooka, pipe, cigar, cigarette, I dipped, snused, snuffed. I loved tobacco, I wasn't *simply* addicted to cigarettes.

So I vape cigalikes to satisfy my cigarette addiction. I vape giant PVs and RBAs with millions of flavors to satisfy the hobby/enthusiast aspect of it. Tobacco was both an addiction and a hobby, now that I vape, it too is both an addiction and a hobby.

 

[kelli]

i started off with the e-cigs and at first i liked them, until the batteries started crapping out within a couple hrs, progressively getting worse until they died completely in a couple weeks. plus the cartridges were expensive.

but...it satisfied the whole smoking ritual for me. i even pretended to light them, and tapped them on an ashtray so it seemed like real smoking.

now i have people here who steered me in the right direction, and i have good gear and am much happier....and not as poor. ♥

 

[bazmonkey]

I think this plays a part in who likes cigalikes too.

Vaping is whatever you want it to be. If you are just vaping to quit smoking, or to still get nicotine with less danger, cigalikes will most likely be fine.

But a lot of people, including me, DO treat vaping like a hobby.

You're right, of course. I DIY my own juice and that aspect is very hobby-like. I was never on a smoking message board

As a smoking substitute alone, I should say, it's not supposed to be a hobby. In that mentality the work involved in larger batteries (cleaning reusable parts, for example) is detrimental to the experience. At home is one thing, but in my daily, working life, I don't have room to vape in a hobby sort of capacity. I may focus on vaping the most at home, but it's during the work day that I "need" what it provides more.

I also fear that the hobby aspect of it is part of why they are being banned in various countries. All arguments aside we should all be able to admit that electronic cigarettes in general make nicotine delivery very... appealing. Little to no health consequence, cheap enough to go crazy with it, flavors up the wazoo, and accessories for your heart's every desire. It's FUN, so fun that it's a hobby for some. It can be used to deliver all manner of illicit substances. These factors shouldn't eclipse their ability to get people off analog cigarettes, but in the minds of the non-smoking public that doesn't want to "help" make smokers' addiction more convenient in any way, it will.

 

[Ken_A]

Actually, I think the hobby and community aspects go a long way to making vaping such a successful method to stoping smoking. The hobby aspect of smoking pipes kept me on them much longer than I would have thought. Toward the end, buying that neat looking pipe was what made the pipe smoking fun. For many cigar smokers, comparing various smoking experiences with the flavor of this and that type/brand of cigar keeps them smoking cigars.
To replace tobacco in it's many aspects, you need to replace and expand on the experiences of it. Vaping allows you to go as far as you need to get what you need. It's not just replacing tobacco with something similar. It's the whole package that does it.

 

[Chiku]

You're right, of course. I DIY my own juice and that aspect is very hobby-like. I was never on a smoking message board

As a smoking substitute alone, I should say, it's not supposed to be a hobby. In that mentality the work involved in larger batteries (cleaning reusable parts, for example) is detrimental to the experience. At home is one thing, but in my daily, working life, I don't have room to vape in a hobby sort of capacity. I may focus on vaping the most at home, but it's during the work day that I "need" what it provides more.

I also fear that the hobby aspect of it is part of why they are being banned in various countries. All arguments aside we should all be able to admit that electronic cigarettes in general make nicotine delivery very... appealing. Little to no health consequence, cheap enough to go crazy with it, flavors up the wazoo, and accessories for your heart's every desire. It's FUN, so fun that it's a hobby for some. It can be used to deliver all manner of illicit substances. These factors shouldn't eclipse their ability to get people off analog cigarettes, but in the minds of the non-smoking public that doesn't want to "help" make smokers' addiction more convenient in any way, it will.

Nicotine has been compared to caffeine, in this forum and other literature that I have read. Coffee can become a hobby, a social activity, cheap, lots of flavours, and now accessories. Should caffeine be controlled? Society has no problem with this addiction, or the fact that it is a hobby for a lot of people.

So, should vaping NOT be a hobby? I say why shouldn't it be? It is a lot better for us than smoking, if the hobby aspect is enjoyable to some people what's wrong with that?

 

[bazmonkey]

Nicotine has been compared to caffeine, in this forum and other literature that I have read. Coffee can become a hobby, a social activity, cheap, lots of flavours, and now accessories. Should caffeine be controlled? Society has no problem with this addiction, or the fact that it is a hobby for a lot of people.

So, should vaping NOT be a hobby? I say why shouldn't it be? It is a lot better for us than smoking, if the hobby aspect is enjoyable to some people what's wrong with that?

Just to start, I'm saying this more from the perspective of the non-smoking public. Whether it should be or not, or if we like it or not, doesn't matter in a world where things can be banned.

Caffeine doesn't primarily come in a form that kills many people. Nicotine does. There isn't a worry that in the search for caffeine people will manage to die. There is a legitimate worry that a person could get into vaping, then be unable to afford it (which is easy if you're buying what they sell at gas stations), and then jump to cigarettes.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be a hobby. I'm not trying to say what "should" or "shouldn't" be. I'm saying that the hobby-promoting aspect of it, the tasty flavors, and the relative lack of health risks will lead much of the public to conclude that it's too attractive a form of nicotine delivery, and people addicted to nicotine are much more liable to switch to other forms of it than someone completely unexposed to nicotine.