Spending a Week With an Electric Cigarette

The great Mark Twain once wrote, “Quitting smoking is easy. I’ve done it a thousand times.” It’s the perfect summation of the eternal struggle between a smoker and his cigarette, at once a loyal friend and two-faced bastard. But an even greater struggle that smokers face is against themselves. Do they smoke because they can’t not, or because they don’t feel like stopping? Anti-smoking products—nicotine gum, patches, nasal spray—are known as Nicotine Replacement Therapy, and have had varying degrees of success. They’re designed to quench your body’s thirst for nicotine, but what they can’t replicate is the pleasure of heading out for a smoke break with your coworkers, or sparking up after a stressful job interview. The physicality of smoking—the holding of the cigarette, the puffing in and blowing out of smoke—is half of the appeal. This means that the most effective form of NRT would be a device that could satisfy a smoker’s nic-fits, while still allowing him to look as debonair as Humphrey Bogart circa 1946. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the e-cigarette.
Several weeks ago one of our interns was puffing away at what looked like a cigarette right here in the office. When he took a haul, the cherry glowed. When he exhaled, a plume of scentless smoke whisped out. He told us it was an electronic cigarette, and what he was blowing out was “nicotine vapors.” Like a child seeing their first Yo Gabba Gabba! episode, we were transfixed. Did this device—that looked and behaved just like a cigarette—feel like one too? Was this the smoking gun (pun intended) that self-hating smokers were looking for? What if you could quit smoking without really quitting smoking? We had to get our stained-yellow hands on one and find out for ourselves. So that’s exactly what we did
After the e-cigarette’s manufacturer—Green Smoke—agreed to send us a $139 Starter Kit, we did a little research and found out that these cyborg smokes weren’t exactly new to the market. The Times explored their yays (zero carcinogens! You can smoke in bars!) and nays (It’s the stuff they use in smoke machines!) back in June of last year. While The Wall Street Journal wrote on the controversy surrounding them (the FDA has yet to approve). The articles both featured testaments from heavy smokers who, thanks to their e-cigarettes, were able to cut smoking out of their lives significantly, if not totally. Leave it to federal rulers and regulators to leave a dark cloud of smoke (pun intended again) over what should be a very positive thing. Detractors claim the different cartridge flavors—chocolate, strawberry, apple—make them attractive to kids. Also, although you’re mostly inhaling a vaporized version of nicotine and water, the concoction includes something called Propylene glycol, a compound used in deodorant, hand sanitizers, and anti-freeze. The jury is still out on whether this is a viable alternative to quitting, or a less but still sketchy quick fix. For the last two weeks, there was not an hour I spent without my e-cigarette, and the experience kind of freaked me out.