http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/31/my-electronic-cigarette-addiction.html
My (Electronic) Cigarette Addiction Jan 31, 2013 4:45 AM EST
I thought I’d found a way to cheat death and still get my nicotine fix. I should have known it was too good to be true. By Eli Lake.
I enjoyed my last real cigarette on August 1, 2008. I was just outside Washington’s Union Station, about to board a train to Philadelphia. I inhaled deeply, stubbed out the butt on the side of a trash can, then threw it (a Marlboro Light) and the lighter I’d used to ignite it into the trash. I was free—unless you count the pack of Nicorette gum in my bag and a bundle of cinnamon sticks, which I’d heard could help with cravings.
Electronic cigarettes use heat to warm up liquid containing nicotine, which smokers inhale as vapor. (Sean Gallup/Getty)
Three days before my farewell to tobacco, my doctor, a rail-thin Hindu named Patel, told me my habit would probably lead to a debilitating stroke. I suspected as much. Leaving aside the warnings on the packs themselves, the medical literature, the court-ordered ad campaigns, the concern from friends and family, every smoker knows he’s killing himself.
My smoking was manic and perpetual. I would smoke before and after brushing my teeth. I would smoke while drinking coffee, after dessert, during dinner, on the phone, waiting in line. I suffered intense sinus flare-ups, headaches, high blood pressure, wheezes, and coughs. If I was sick, usually from some respiratory ailment brought on by smoking, I would smoke nonetheless.
But there’s a difference between knowing the bitter truth and hearing it straight from your doctor. So when Patel delivered his diagnosis, it was the catalyst I needed to quit. My mom was waiting at the train station in Philadelphia that summer day, and I finally had some good news for her on a topic she had been nagging me about for years.
At this point in the story, you’re supposed to congratulate me for my courage in overcoming addiction. I am supposed to tell you that although it was hard to give up my gradual suicide, it was all worth it, as I now run marathons for children’s cancer research.
But that would be a lie. Ending my dependence on Marlboro Lights was cruel deprivation. It’s not just that smoking is awesome, it’s that there is no better addiction for a working journalist. So much of what reporters do is wait around for press conferences, for important people to leave meetings, for sources to show up at cafés, for hearings to reconvene. Smoking is something to do with your hands and mouth in the long stretches of inactivity that fill a working hack’s day. Then there is the nicotine: a stimulant that for the addict also has the added effect of calming the nerves. In other words, a perfect drug for anyone who writes on deadline.
I am supposed to tell you that although it was hard to give up my gradual suicide, it was all worth it, as I now run marathons for children’s cancer research.
But the best thing about smoking is that it goes so well with alcohol. There is something about that mixture of martinis and cigarettes that improves the evening over time.
In the first months after quitting, I was desperate for nicotine. At first I tried the gum, then the lozenges. I tried the patch for about an hour. But in the end, the buzz wasn’t worth it. Try mixing cabernet with Nicorette sometime if you don’t believe me.
Then one evening, more than two years after I’d quit the habit, I was saved by a new one.
I was at a dinner for a good friend who had just returned from the Middle East. As he sipped a drink, he pulled out what looked to be a cross between a pen and a cigarette holder, and he took a puff. It was an electronic cigarette—and it was miraculous in so many ways. He could smoke it indoors, with no fear of violating city ordinance. He wasn’t inhaling chemically treated tobacco into his lungs. He was simply inhaling a vapor, one tinged with a touch of nicotine.
I had to try it. It was wonderful. I could smoke when I wanted, and I didn’t have to destroy my lungs, sinuses, and circulatory system in the process. My clothes wouldn’t smell like a dive bar. I found the loophole, cheated cancer, and rediscovered the pleasure of martinis. The added bonus with electronic cigarettes was that I could smoke them anywhere. On freezing days, there was no need to huddle outside the office for four minutes to suck down my dose. I smoked on airplanes, in meetings, and at restaurants. It was like a time machine to the golden age of smoking, when there were ashtrays on elevators and in movie theaters.
Over time, I have come to depend on them just as I once depended on the authentic article. I don’t smoke as manically or perpetually as I used to, but I don’t leave home without my disposable e-cigarette, either. I don’t need to inhale first thing in the morning, but I usually enjoy a few puffs over coffee.
Occasionally, I get a quizzical look. I tell people, “It’s just harmless vapor.” If only that were true.
The thing is, after years of telling myself I’d found the perfect loophole, I thought it might be wise to check my facts. The consensus medical research today is that while electronic cigarettes are healthier than tobacco cigarettes, and a good way to end dependency on tobacco, they are not without health risks. Besides the nicotine, the other active ingredient in my cigarettes is propylene glycol, a substance the FDA classifies as GRAS, or “generally recognized as safe.” But there’s a catch. Most research about propylene glycol is about its effect when it’s ingested as an additive in food. Less is known about the effects of inhaling it as a vapor—dozens and dozens of times a day.
“The safety and efficacy of e-cigarettes have not been fully studied,” says the FDA on its website, and consumers “have no way of knowing ... how much nicotine or other potentially harmful chemicals are being inhaled during use.”
Krave, the Miami-based company that makes my e-cigarettes, doesn’t go into much detail on its website about the health effects of its products, except to say they contain nicotine (“a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm”) and propylene glycol (“on the safe elements list of the Food and Drug Administration”) and are “not an aid for smoking cessation.” Krave does stress that the e-cigarettes are “revolutionary” and “innovative.” That much I can agree with.
Dr. Lowell Dale, the medical director of the Mayo Clinic’s Tobacco Quitline, was far more incendiary. Propylene glycol as a liquid, he told me, is “similar to antifreeze.”
“I think the potential is that they are harmful,” Dale says. “I think there is less nicotine in those products, and they are not combustible, so you are not getting all the particulate matter you get from cigarettes.” But, he adds, “we are just being very cautious about the long-term consequences of its use. It comes out of China. It’s unregulated. There is a lot of evidence the products vary from cartridge to cartridge.”
Wonderful. Here I was thinking I was cheating death when I was more likely inhaling Chinese-made antifreeze. I guess there’s always cinnamon sticks
My (Electronic) Cigarette Addiction Jan 31, 2013 4:45 AM EST
I thought I’d found a way to cheat death and still get my nicotine fix. I should have known it was too good to be true. By Eli Lake.
I enjoyed my last real cigarette on August 1, 2008. I was just outside Washington’s Union Station, about to board a train to Philadelphia. I inhaled deeply, stubbed out the butt on the side of a trash can, then threw it (a Marlboro Light) and the lighter I’d used to ignite it into the trash. I was free—unless you count the pack of Nicorette gum in my bag and a bundle of cinnamon sticks, which I’d heard could help with cravings.
Electronic cigarettes use heat to warm up liquid containing nicotine, which smokers inhale as vapor. (Sean Gallup/Getty)
Three days before my farewell to tobacco, my doctor, a rail-thin Hindu named Patel, told me my habit would probably lead to a debilitating stroke. I suspected as much. Leaving aside the warnings on the packs themselves, the medical literature, the court-ordered ad campaigns, the concern from friends and family, every smoker knows he’s killing himself.
My smoking was manic and perpetual. I would smoke before and after brushing my teeth. I would smoke while drinking coffee, after dessert, during dinner, on the phone, waiting in line. I suffered intense sinus flare-ups, headaches, high blood pressure, wheezes, and coughs. If I was sick, usually from some respiratory ailment brought on by smoking, I would smoke nonetheless.
But there’s a difference between knowing the bitter truth and hearing it straight from your doctor. So when Patel delivered his diagnosis, it was the catalyst I needed to quit. My mom was waiting at the train station in Philadelphia that summer day, and I finally had some good news for her on a topic she had been nagging me about for years.
At this point in the story, you’re supposed to congratulate me for my courage in overcoming addiction. I am supposed to tell you that although it was hard to give up my gradual suicide, it was all worth it, as I now run marathons for children’s cancer research.
But that would be a lie. Ending my dependence on Marlboro Lights was cruel deprivation. It’s not just that smoking is awesome, it’s that there is no better addiction for a working journalist. So much of what reporters do is wait around for press conferences, for important people to leave meetings, for sources to show up at cafés, for hearings to reconvene. Smoking is something to do with your hands and mouth in the long stretches of inactivity that fill a working hack’s day. Then there is the nicotine: a stimulant that for the addict also has the added effect of calming the nerves. In other words, a perfect drug for anyone who writes on deadline.
I am supposed to tell you that although it was hard to give up my gradual suicide, it was all worth it, as I now run marathons for children’s cancer research.
But the best thing about smoking is that it goes so well with alcohol. There is something about that mixture of martinis and cigarettes that improves the evening over time.
In the first months after quitting, I was desperate for nicotine. At first I tried the gum, then the lozenges. I tried the patch for about an hour. But in the end, the buzz wasn’t worth it. Try mixing cabernet with Nicorette sometime if you don’t believe me.
Then one evening, more than two years after I’d quit the habit, I was saved by a new one.
I was at a dinner for a good friend who had just returned from the Middle East. As he sipped a drink, he pulled out what looked to be a cross between a pen and a cigarette holder, and he took a puff. It was an electronic cigarette—and it was miraculous in so many ways. He could smoke it indoors, with no fear of violating city ordinance. He wasn’t inhaling chemically treated tobacco into his lungs. He was simply inhaling a vapor, one tinged with a touch of nicotine.
I had to try it. It was wonderful. I could smoke when I wanted, and I didn’t have to destroy my lungs, sinuses, and circulatory system in the process. My clothes wouldn’t smell like a dive bar. I found the loophole, cheated cancer, and rediscovered the pleasure of martinis. The added bonus with electronic cigarettes was that I could smoke them anywhere. On freezing days, there was no need to huddle outside the office for four minutes to suck down my dose. I smoked on airplanes, in meetings, and at restaurants. It was like a time machine to the golden age of smoking, when there were ashtrays on elevators and in movie theaters.
Over time, I have come to depend on them just as I once depended on the authentic article. I don’t smoke as manically or perpetually as I used to, but I don’t leave home without my disposable e-cigarette, either. I don’t need to inhale first thing in the morning, but I usually enjoy a few puffs over coffee.
Occasionally, I get a quizzical look. I tell people, “It’s just harmless vapor.” If only that were true.
The thing is, after years of telling myself I’d found the perfect loophole, I thought it might be wise to check my facts. The consensus medical research today is that while electronic cigarettes are healthier than tobacco cigarettes, and a good way to end dependency on tobacco, they are not without health risks. Besides the nicotine, the other active ingredient in my cigarettes is propylene glycol, a substance the FDA classifies as GRAS, or “generally recognized as safe.” But there’s a catch. Most research about propylene glycol is about its effect when it’s ingested as an additive in food. Less is known about the effects of inhaling it as a vapor—dozens and dozens of times a day.
“The safety and efficacy of e-cigarettes have not been fully studied,” says the FDA on its website, and consumers “have no way of knowing ... how much nicotine or other potentially harmful chemicals are being inhaled during use.”
Krave, the Miami-based company that makes my e-cigarettes, doesn’t go into much detail on its website about the health effects of its products, except to say they contain nicotine (“a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm”) and propylene glycol (“on the safe elements list of the Food and Drug Administration”) and are “not an aid for smoking cessation.” Krave does stress that the e-cigarettes are “revolutionary” and “innovative.” That much I can agree with.
Dr. Lowell Dale, the medical director of the Mayo Clinic’s Tobacco Quitline, was far more incendiary. Propylene glycol as a liquid, he told me, is “similar to antifreeze.”
“I think the potential is that they are harmful,” Dale says. “I think there is less nicotine in those products, and they are not combustible, so you are not getting all the particulate matter you get from cigarettes.” But, he adds, “we are just being very cautious about the long-term consequences of its use. It comes out of China. It’s unregulated. There is a lot of evidence the products vary from cartridge to cartridge.”
Wonderful. Here I was thinking I was cheating death when I was more likely inhaling Chinese-made antifreeze. I guess there’s always cinnamon sticks
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