I was a smoker for over 45 years. It was unfortunate that I started smoking back in the 1960’s because the cigarettes were quite tasty then. If American cigarettes tasted then like they do now I doubt whether I would have become a smoker.
In 1969 I discovered European and Baltic tobaccos and have smoked practically everything except American cigarettes ever since. When I couldn’t get English cigarettes anymore I was forced to switch to Canadian which was a little different than what I really liked and was used to but it was the only option for a few years. The last five years I smoked I bought loose natural tobacco from Down South and rolled it myself when the taxes got too high here.
In any case, I believe I am qualified to have an opinion that may be useful to others who have smoked for years and know that they really need to give it up whether they want to or not (hey…we aren’t stupid – just addicted).
When it dawned on me what the electronic cigarette actually was, I recognized the possibility of really stopping smoking while throwing the dog a bone. As a professional quitter who had gone cold turkey, chewed gum, Nicorette, and patches over the years, I wasn’t sure I could stop – in fact I always came back.
The electronic cigarette held the promise to stop smoking and do away with all the little irritants that go along with burning the weed: burn holes in my shirts, holes in my pockets (lit pipes put away), stinking ashtrays, lighters and matches, social ostracism, pleading from my kids to quit, my doctors warnings etc. etc. I haven’t even mentioned the cost. I even once got thrown out of one of the most notorious hard core low-life drinking establishments in Seattle for smoking my pipe (before prohibition) when the smoke was so thick you couldn’t see through the cigarette haze.
vaping has allowed me to quit smoking. In fact, vaping for me is more pleasurable than smoking has been for some years. It wasn’t a straight path from the first contact to the conviction that it was wonderful. Is it better than not doing anything at all? – Yes.
My first testing of e-cigs was very disappointing. I tried the disposables and the throw away cartomizers first because I didn’t want to blow a lot of money just for a test. Well, they were gross and as far as I am concerned, they don’t work well enough. The battery was going dead on me after an hour or two, and it was a constant hassle fiddling with the things all day.
I resisted going into the ‘fill up the tank yourself gizmo’ because it didn’t look like a cigarette or even a cigar. It looked like some high tech geek thing and I really had some resistance to the thought. It certainly did not fit my self- image. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see anywhere else to go but to buy a “mod” and build myself what I knew I needed i.e. a big battery and a big reservoir for the liquid. So I did. I invested a hundred bucks. Guess what? I changed my self-image. Necessity really is the mother of invention.
I had a problem figuring out what to put in it as every flavor offered me at the e-cig store left me unhappy. I had been enjoying some of the best tobacco the world had to offer for decades – I wasn’t going to be happy with artificial candy or fruit, nicotine or no nicotine. I explored the “tobacco” flavors offered at my local vape shop - they were disgusting to me. They had no resemblance to the experience of smoking good tobacco. They weren’t tobacco at all. I figured that whoever made that stuff obviously never smoked anything decent. Peanuts, hazelnuts and just plain weird stink doesn’t a good smoke make. (Maybe the makers were smoking the wrong weed).
I was convinced that the concept was good in spite of the disappointment with the liquid flavors out there. So I began the hunt for real tobacco flavors. It didn’t take long before my basement was full of tobacco leaves. Years ago I ran a small company that made specialty chemicals. I was the product developer. I got to work in the lab experimenting with lots of very cool unusual chemical compounds and formulating them into useful products. Those years working in the lab prepared me for my quit smoking project. I started experimenting with tobacco infusions and extractions.
This tobacco flavor project of mine was right up my alley. It didn’t take long to discover that the natural tobacco extracts tasted better to me than any artificial flavor. In fact, they taste better than cigarette smoke. I know I am not alone in this prejudice. I have no doubt that many people are happy as clams in the sand at high tide with a fruit or candy flavored vape. It just isn’t for me. I like tobacco and I like my vape to taste like tobacco, or rather to give me a pleasurable tobacco experience.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that burning cigs actually taste like crap. It took me a while to figure that out but it is true. It’s the fragrance and the overall sensory experience that can be great. That fragrance and aroma is organic, resinous and sublime in character. It influences “our idea” of taste.
Those of us that have used tobacco for years actually have a personal relationship with tobacco, a friendly one as we like each other. This is no metaphor – it is a real emotional tie to the experience. If it was just about the nicotine, the gum would have worked. vaping tobacco extracts actually gives you access to the taste and essence of the natural tobacco without the nasty parts.
We should not underestimate the inner need to maintain this long term relationship with tobacco. Our brains have been re-wired, especially those of us that started smoking when we were not fully formed.
Vaping allows me to stop smoking while maintaining a relationship that I really do like and do not wish to do without. I don’t want to smoke for all the usual reasons but at the same time, I do not really wish to change my emotional and physical habits (much) or throw the baby out with the bath water.
So, I vape tobacco flavors extracted from whole fresh tobacco leaves.
I should mention that fresh cured tobacco has no resemblance to the cigarettes currently sold in America. Most Americans have never smoked "just natural tobacco". American cigs are filler materials with chemical flavors sprayed on it. When fresh tobacco flavor is extracted and vaped from the leaf, it is smooth, pleasant and enjoyable – as organic an impression as anything can be. It is an exotic sensory experience that few are familiar with that have only smoked American cigs in the last thirty five years (They changed composition drastically in the mid-seventies).
Once I got a flavor recipe I really liked…
I started vaping at 32 mg/ml or 3.2% nicotine level. It didn’t take me long to feel the cardio effects, only a day. I don’t want any cardio effects. It means the nicotine level is too high. I dropped the level to a 24 mg. and within a week or so I dropped it down to 18 mg. After 6 weeks another drop to 12mg. I will probably stay at this level for a while. I would like to get it down to 6 mg but that level triggers the anxiety of wanting more nicotine. I suspect it might take a while for my body to acclimate before I drop the level again. It isn’t the nicotine that causes me potential health problems as long as I don’t consume more than what makes me comfortable. It was the smoke effect on my lung capacity and shortness of breath that had to go.
One little trick I do is have two bottles of my tobacco extracted e-liquid, one at my highest level and one with 0 nicotine. I can mix the two and achieve a decrease in very small increments over time.
Since I started vaping my breathing has improved dramatically. I should also mention that the vaping experience is unique and in fact I find it more enjoyable than smoking. I don’t feel like I have given up anything important as the best aspects of the plant I love are actually enhanced. I have unloaded all the negative aspects in the transition. The point here is: if you don’t find the right liquid to vape you won’t stick with it.
The other half of the transition equation is to get yourself set up with a simple reliable vaping device. I suggest an ego stick battery and a Kanger pro mini tank. It's inexpensive and easy to maintain. There is nothing to go wrong with it that changing wick won't fix (it takes 30 seconds and costs about $1).
So do your homework and experiment with the liquids. We tend to take our likes and dislikes for granted. You will find that defining why you like something can be difficult to analyze. Only you can do this for yourself. It can, and should be, an exciting adventure. Some of us have difficulty discovering these adventures after being on this planet for 40, 50 or more years.
Just go for it.
In 1969 I discovered European and Baltic tobaccos and have smoked practically everything except American cigarettes ever since. When I couldn’t get English cigarettes anymore I was forced to switch to Canadian which was a little different than what I really liked and was used to but it was the only option for a few years. The last five years I smoked I bought loose natural tobacco from Down South and rolled it myself when the taxes got too high here.
In any case, I believe I am qualified to have an opinion that may be useful to others who have smoked for years and know that they really need to give it up whether they want to or not (hey…we aren’t stupid – just addicted).
When it dawned on me what the electronic cigarette actually was, I recognized the possibility of really stopping smoking while throwing the dog a bone. As a professional quitter who had gone cold turkey, chewed gum, Nicorette, and patches over the years, I wasn’t sure I could stop – in fact I always came back.
The electronic cigarette held the promise to stop smoking and do away with all the little irritants that go along with burning the weed: burn holes in my shirts, holes in my pockets (lit pipes put away), stinking ashtrays, lighters and matches, social ostracism, pleading from my kids to quit, my doctors warnings etc. etc. I haven’t even mentioned the cost. I even once got thrown out of one of the most notorious hard core low-life drinking establishments in Seattle for smoking my pipe (before prohibition) when the smoke was so thick you couldn’t see through the cigarette haze.
vaping has allowed me to quit smoking. In fact, vaping for me is more pleasurable than smoking has been for some years. It wasn’t a straight path from the first contact to the conviction that it was wonderful. Is it better than not doing anything at all? – Yes.
My first testing of e-cigs was very disappointing. I tried the disposables and the throw away cartomizers first because I didn’t want to blow a lot of money just for a test. Well, they were gross and as far as I am concerned, they don’t work well enough. The battery was going dead on me after an hour or two, and it was a constant hassle fiddling with the things all day.
I resisted going into the ‘fill up the tank yourself gizmo’ because it didn’t look like a cigarette or even a cigar. It looked like some high tech geek thing and I really had some resistance to the thought. It certainly did not fit my self- image. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see anywhere else to go but to buy a “mod” and build myself what I knew I needed i.e. a big battery and a big reservoir for the liquid. So I did. I invested a hundred bucks. Guess what? I changed my self-image. Necessity really is the mother of invention.
I had a problem figuring out what to put in it as every flavor offered me at the e-cig store left me unhappy. I had been enjoying some of the best tobacco the world had to offer for decades – I wasn’t going to be happy with artificial candy or fruit, nicotine or no nicotine. I explored the “tobacco” flavors offered at my local vape shop - they were disgusting to me. They had no resemblance to the experience of smoking good tobacco. They weren’t tobacco at all. I figured that whoever made that stuff obviously never smoked anything decent. Peanuts, hazelnuts and just plain weird stink doesn’t a good smoke make. (Maybe the makers were smoking the wrong weed).
I was convinced that the concept was good in spite of the disappointment with the liquid flavors out there. So I began the hunt for real tobacco flavors. It didn’t take long before my basement was full of tobacco leaves. Years ago I ran a small company that made specialty chemicals. I was the product developer. I got to work in the lab experimenting with lots of very cool unusual chemical compounds and formulating them into useful products. Those years working in the lab prepared me for my quit smoking project. I started experimenting with tobacco infusions and extractions.
This tobacco flavor project of mine was right up my alley. It didn’t take long to discover that the natural tobacco extracts tasted better to me than any artificial flavor. In fact, they taste better than cigarette smoke. I know I am not alone in this prejudice. I have no doubt that many people are happy as clams in the sand at high tide with a fruit or candy flavored vape. It just isn’t for me. I like tobacco and I like my vape to taste like tobacco, or rather to give me a pleasurable tobacco experience.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that burning cigs actually taste like crap. It took me a while to figure that out but it is true. It’s the fragrance and the overall sensory experience that can be great. That fragrance and aroma is organic, resinous and sublime in character. It influences “our idea” of taste.
Those of us that have used tobacco for years actually have a personal relationship with tobacco, a friendly one as we like each other. This is no metaphor – it is a real emotional tie to the experience. If it was just about the nicotine, the gum would have worked. vaping tobacco extracts actually gives you access to the taste and essence of the natural tobacco without the nasty parts.
We should not underestimate the inner need to maintain this long term relationship with tobacco. Our brains have been re-wired, especially those of us that started smoking when we were not fully formed.
Vaping allows me to stop smoking while maintaining a relationship that I really do like and do not wish to do without. I don’t want to smoke for all the usual reasons but at the same time, I do not really wish to change my emotional and physical habits (much) or throw the baby out with the bath water.
So, I vape tobacco flavors extracted from whole fresh tobacco leaves.
I should mention that fresh cured tobacco has no resemblance to the cigarettes currently sold in America. Most Americans have never smoked "just natural tobacco". American cigs are filler materials with chemical flavors sprayed on it. When fresh tobacco flavor is extracted and vaped from the leaf, it is smooth, pleasant and enjoyable – as organic an impression as anything can be. It is an exotic sensory experience that few are familiar with that have only smoked American cigs in the last thirty five years (They changed composition drastically in the mid-seventies).
Once I got a flavor recipe I really liked…
I started vaping at 32 mg/ml or 3.2% nicotine level. It didn’t take me long to feel the cardio effects, only a day. I don’t want any cardio effects. It means the nicotine level is too high. I dropped the level to a 24 mg. and within a week or so I dropped it down to 18 mg. After 6 weeks another drop to 12mg. I will probably stay at this level for a while. I would like to get it down to 6 mg but that level triggers the anxiety of wanting more nicotine. I suspect it might take a while for my body to acclimate before I drop the level again. It isn’t the nicotine that causes me potential health problems as long as I don’t consume more than what makes me comfortable. It was the smoke effect on my lung capacity and shortness of breath that had to go.
One little trick I do is have two bottles of my tobacco extracted e-liquid, one at my highest level and one with 0 nicotine. I can mix the two and achieve a decrease in very small increments over time.
Since I started vaping my breathing has improved dramatically. I should also mention that the vaping experience is unique and in fact I find it more enjoyable than smoking. I don’t feel like I have given up anything important as the best aspects of the plant I love are actually enhanced. I have unloaded all the negative aspects in the transition. The point here is: if you don’t find the right liquid to vape you won’t stick with it.
The other half of the transition equation is to get yourself set up with a simple reliable vaping device. I suggest an ego stick battery and a Kanger pro mini tank. It's inexpensive and easy to maintain. There is nothing to go wrong with it that changing wick won't fix (it takes 30 seconds and costs about $1).
So do your homework and experiment with the liquids. We tend to take our likes and dislikes for granted. You will find that defining why you like something can be difficult to analyze. Only you can do this for yourself. It can, and should be, an exciting adventure. Some of us have difficulty discovering these adventures after being on this planet for 40, 50 or more years.
Just go for it.
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