The electric cigarette lights up an ex-smoker
Journal-Gazette News
First the rotary phone died out, then, mercifully, 8-track tapes, then the typewriter and vinyl records.
So it only stands to reason that the cigarette should be replaced by an electronic gadget.
The electronic cigarette sounds ridiculous – sort of like an electronic Cobb salad – but it does exist, and for those who want to get off cigarettes, the people selling it say it’s a good substitute.
One of them is Karen Hall, who set up shop in a booth in a storefront behind a little café in Urbana, a little bitty town in Wabash County.
Hall smoked Winston Ultra Lights for 30 years. For a while, she tried to cut down on expenses by rolling her own, sitting down for an hour every other night and cranking out two or three packs using a little machine she bought.
Then she tried to quit, but nothing worked – not the patches, the gum or cold turkey. One day, skimming through a free magazine, she saw an ad for electronic smokes.
Hall ordered the kit and, after it arrived, laid it out on the table, looked at it nervously and smoked three regular cigarettes while she pondered whether to even try it. We were, after all, talking about some weird battery-powered doodad that comes with little vials of nicotine, a deadly poison.
But hey, she figured, I smoke cigarettes. What’s the harm in puffing on this?
Two months later, Hall is still puffing away on this gadget that imitates everything a regular cigarette does – a tube that looks just like a cigarette, a light that makes it look like a burning cigarette and a smoke-like cloud that contains nicotine.
The difference, she says, is that it contains no tar or carbon monoxide, and the smoke that it puts out is really a mist, so she can smoke electronically anywhere she wants to. Just to avoid confusion, though, the non-cigarette that Hall uses has a blue light on the tip, not a red-orange flame.
The electronic cigarette uses a battery, an atomizer and a cartridge that contains water and nicotine. Puff on the cigarette, and the blue light comes on like the glowing ash of a cigarette and a heating element creates the nicotine-laden mist. The smoker inhales that, and it’s just like having a regular smoke, Hall says.
The kit comes with a spare battery and a charger, and each cartridge – regular, medium, light and nicotine-free – lasts about a day and costs $1, a fraction of what a pack of cigarettes costs today.
The kit isn’t cheap – $75 plus tax – and more cartridges add to that, but it is cheaper than cigarettes these days.
The electronic smokes aren’t being billed as a way to quit smoking, Hall says. There’s no proof they help people quit. But they do get you off cigarettes made of tobacco and onto a plastic variety, she says.
Selling the kits is a little tough, though, Hall says. People who call her tiny operation, Happy Lungs, have lots of questions but never buy. The ones who show up in person are the ones who buy.
That’s the 21st century, I guess – vices being replaced with electronic substitutes.
Journal-Gazette News
First the rotary phone died out, then, mercifully, 8-track tapes, then the typewriter and vinyl records.
So it only stands to reason that the cigarette should be replaced by an electronic gadget.
The electronic cigarette sounds ridiculous – sort of like an electronic Cobb salad – but it does exist, and for those who want to get off cigarettes, the people selling it say it’s a good substitute.
One of them is Karen Hall, who set up shop in a booth in a storefront behind a little café in Urbana, a little bitty town in Wabash County.
Hall smoked Winston Ultra Lights for 30 years. For a while, she tried to cut down on expenses by rolling her own, sitting down for an hour every other night and cranking out two or three packs using a little machine she bought.
Then she tried to quit, but nothing worked – not the patches, the gum or cold turkey. One day, skimming through a free magazine, she saw an ad for electronic smokes.
Hall ordered the kit and, after it arrived, laid it out on the table, looked at it nervously and smoked three regular cigarettes while she pondered whether to even try it. We were, after all, talking about some weird battery-powered doodad that comes with little vials of nicotine, a deadly poison.
But hey, she figured, I smoke cigarettes. What’s the harm in puffing on this?
Two months later, Hall is still puffing away on this gadget that imitates everything a regular cigarette does – a tube that looks just like a cigarette, a light that makes it look like a burning cigarette and a smoke-like cloud that contains nicotine.
The difference, she says, is that it contains no tar or carbon monoxide, and the smoke that it puts out is really a mist, so she can smoke electronically anywhere she wants to. Just to avoid confusion, though, the non-cigarette that Hall uses has a blue light on the tip, not a red-orange flame.
The electronic cigarette uses a battery, an atomizer and a cartridge that contains water and nicotine. Puff on the cigarette, and the blue light comes on like the glowing ash of a cigarette and a heating element creates the nicotine-laden mist. The smoker inhales that, and it’s just like having a regular smoke, Hall says.
The kit comes with a spare battery and a charger, and each cartridge – regular, medium, light and nicotine-free – lasts about a day and costs $1, a fraction of what a pack of cigarettes costs today.
The kit isn’t cheap – $75 plus tax – and more cartridges add to that, but it is cheaper than cigarettes these days.
The electronic smokes aren’t being billed as a way to quit smoking, Hall says. There’s no proof they help people quit. But they do get you off cigarettes made of tobacco and onto a plastic variety, she says.
Selling the kits is a little tough, though, Hall says. People who call her tiny operation, Happy Lungs, have lots of questions but never buy. The ones who show up in person are the ones who buy.
That’s the 21st century, I guess – vices being replaced with electronic substitutes.
