Electronic Cigarette, Is it the future? +18

This blog is +18, if you are less than 18 years old, please don't read this blog.

I've been reviewing e-cigs, the new shortcut name for electronic cigarettes, for the last 4 days, trying to get to the bottom of it. I'm a heavy smoker, I consume more than 1 pack a day, this year, the government here in Cyprus, gave smokers a new gift, more stories in the already skyrocketing tax on cigarettes, smoking nowadays costs a small fortune each month, of course beside the tons of annoying things about smoking areas, health problems... well every smoker knows what I'm talking about.

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 Alternatives???

I switched to roll your own, since the taxes on cigarettes started to hit the sky, it was a nice alternative since it used to be affordable compared to cigarette packs, now that's old news, even roll your own, isn't affordable anymore, so where to go from here? I really enjoy smoking, all smokers do, I've been smoking for the last 16 years, and I enjoyed almost every cigarette, cigar and pipe I ever smoked, I already tried the electronic cigarette, I had a kit as a gift, two batteries, 8 cartridges, I don't remember what brand, I used it for two or three days, and then, back to cigarettes, so what seems to be the problem? as far as I remember, it was great, when it worked!.. The kind I had looked like a cigarette, and the smoke was great, but really for a small period of time, two or three puffs, and it's dead, I had to wait for another 15 minutes in order to have my next treat, and after that, I needed to change the battery!.. I have better things to do in my life, rather than changing batteries and waiting for the next treat all day, it was more annoying than anything else I have tried ever.

Recently I noticed some people in non-smoking areas using electronic cigarettes, it looks different than the one I had, it's bigger, doesn't look like a cigarette, some of them have clear tank " I believe they call it cartomizer" so you can see the amount of juice inside, some of them have buttons, that you push in order to inhale "mine was automatic". I decided to review this stuff.. I was shocked, I mean the more research I make, the more confused I get, many brands with different features, all the new names of stuff I haven't heard about before, and no one to explain what's the meaning of an atomizer or a cartomizer, or whatever.. and why is a separate atomizer better than a built-in one!.. why some of them cost 20 Euros, and others cost 120 Euros!? what kinds are refillable? As far as I remember, mine was not refillable, you have to purchase the cartridges "I didn't use it long enough in order to purchase any :-)".

After watching many reviews, about many issues:

- The different kinds.
- The health issue.
- The prices.

What's the Difference?

I came to some sort of a conclusion, I'm giving it another chance, but for sure, not the same kind I tried, or anything like it "looks like a real cigarette", because the battery life always reminded me how short life is, and that's the conclusion I found watching some videos about this issue, many people said the same thing, small e-cigs are not satisfactory, on the other hand, some reviews and videos about larger sizes, they said that the battery works for a day, sometimes for days, you can puff whenever you like, recharge when you go to sleep, and next day, it'll work for the whole day, the smoke were great, remember what I wrote earlier? It was great when it worked, the taste was great, and for these large sizes, I can refill, I can choose from different nicotine levels, I was surprised to see that some companies advised users to control their inhalations in order to keep it equal to the inhalations using regular cigarettes, or less, "which means that the e-cig's battery wont force me to do that :-P" see for yourself "I copy-pasted the advisory of a company's website in the bottom of the blog". Which takes us to the next issue "Health".

Is it safer than smoking?

Went to Youtube.com in order to watch some videos concerning e-cigs, the first result at the top were of the famous "The Doctors" program discussing this issue, at the end of the video, the four doctors were smoking electronic cigarettes, cigars and pipes!.. in few words, it's illegal for under 18 years old, if you don't smoke already, don't use e-cigs, if you're a smoker, it is advised to switch to e cigarettes at once, it is free of more than 40 components that do exist in the regular cigarettes, and that can cause cancer and many other serious health illnesses, the only component that it contains in common is nicotine, which has ups and downs, refills vary between 24mg and 0mg nicotine.

What do my wallet think?

Well, I started thinking about switching to electronic cigarettes in the first place because of the price of the regular cigarettes, which is really dependable, first of all, I didn't care about any of the e-cigs that look like real cigarettes, or have the same size, I thought those would be cheaper than the other, bigger sizes, but that wasn't the case, some of these cigarette like e-cigs are really over priced, I'm talking here about little less than 100$ for the standard kit, but still, I didn't care for those, I'm interested in the kinds that have bigger batteries, so how about those? The 10 ml e-liquid bottle equals 10 packs of cigarettes, the average cost for it is about 6 Euros, of course there's the cost of the kit for the first time, and the cost of replacement parts, most of the batteries are described as 650 mAh which was a complete mystery for me to understand what that means, but afterwards I found a descent company website that was considering enough to explain, but this company has two kinds of batteries a 190 mAh and a 900 mAh, so I'll give this issue some space in order to explain it better, hence understand it better :-)

- The 190 mAh Battery, needs recharge after 250 puffs (equals to 15 cigarettes) so for me it's a little bit less than 1 day, yet with two available batteries, it's not a big deal, the battery's life is 300 recharges, which equals 250 packs of regular cigarettes! after that, I'll need to purchase a new one, it's 16 Euro, so after doing the math, it's about 0.064 Euros per pack!

-The 900 mAh Battery, needs to recharge after 1000 puffs (equals to 60 cigarettes) so I suppose it'll take me about 2 to 3 days, until I need to change the battery, the battery's life is 300 recharges, which equals 1000 packs of reg. cigs. (according to the companies website) and it costs 27 Euros, so doing the math again, it's about 0.027 Euros per pack !!! which is almost 3 times cheaper than the smaller battery.

let's say that I need to change the atomizers from time to time, the cost of the pack (5 filled cartomizers with new built-in atomizers) is 10 Euros, each cartomizer (which is the tank that holds the liquid and the atomizer is the device that turns the liquid into smoke) already has liquid that equals 15 cigarettes, so it's about 4 packs of cigarettes, and with the e-liquid available in order to refill, which is 6 Euros for an amount that equals 10 packs, so it's 60 cents per pack, let's say that I need to change the cartomizer after 4 times of refilling, that will make the cost or the liquid and the replacement parts "except for the batteries" about 1 Euro and 22 cents per pack.

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Price conclusion, the cost of e-smoking, compared to one pack of traditional cigarettes will be about,  1.23 Euros, OMG!!! I'm already paying 4.5 Euros per pack!!!

Anyways, if you are a smoker here's a link to calculate how much you're spending on cigarettes, compared to the e-cigs http://www.airsmoke.eu/en/savings

Of course there's the cost of the starter kit "the device including the batteries, the cartomizers, the chargers and the box" which vary according to what am I going to purchase, some of kits include two batteries. I could find a packet that costs 45 Euros including one battery 3 cartomizers already filled, and a charger, I already purchased of this brand  Air Smoke the big one "with the bigger battery", with a couple of e-liquids, I can't wait to put my hands on it and give it a puff, and quit paying 4.5 Euros a day for a pack of cigarettes. Also to post my experience about it :-).

And here's the link from the company's site I wrote about earlier:

E-Smoking Recommendations

AirSmoke recommends limiting the frequency of using an electronic cigarette. In using ONLY EL-CIG, do not take more than 300 to 400 inhalations, which is equal to 20 to 30 tobacco cigarettes, regardless the type of cartridge, nicotine level and flavour.

When combining AirSmoke with tobacco cigarettes, total amount of smoking should not be more than amount of cigarettes smoked before. We recommend using an electronic cigarette with the same or less frequency as traditional cigarettes. When smoking an electronic cigarette, inhale no more than 12 to 20 times and take a break for at least 30 minutes.

Control the nicotine level and intensity of using your e-cigarette. EL-CIG is designed exclusively for elgaring.
* The duration of an inhalation is 1-2 sec., in average 12 to 15 inhalations are equal to one traditional cigarette.