Sometimes known as "electronic cigarettes," or "vapers," e-cigarettes are an electronic device marketed as an aid to assist inveterate users of that "custom loathsome to the eye" known as tobacco smoking to desist their unhealthy habit.
An e-cigarette is a small plastic or metal rod about the same size and shape of an ordinary, or "analogue," cigarette. It unscrews in the middle and where the outer two thirds of an ordinary coffin nail would be is a capsule containing water with a tinge of nicotine in it and some flavourings and suchlike. The idea is that unlike nicotine patches, it also addresses the psychological craving that veteran smokers may have to have something in their mouth (oo-er). One then reaches for one's vaper and screws in a new cartridge whenever one feels the need to have a cigarette, and, with time and willpower, one gradually switches to cartridges with lower and lower nicotine content. Thus one is then weaned off of the taking of tobacco.
There's a small battery in the "butt" of the e-cigarette which powers a small heating element that vaporises the nicotine-tinged water in the cartridge, which one then draws on and inhales, which is activated by sucking on it. The nicotine-tinged water may also be flavoured, either to mimic the taste of one's previous brand of fag (i.e. Marlboro, Camel, Silk Cut), or to taste like something totally off the wall (i.e. banana split, cheese on toast, mutton vindaloo). The "carton" (which can be a plastic case or a more realistic mock up of a silver cigarette case) can also act as a charger in and of itself from a larger 9-volt battery and that in turn can be charged from a mains plug or a USB attachment.
It is said that they're used as an aid to quit smoking. At least, that's the stated intent. One only need look at the fact that a lot of vapers are designed to look like ordinary ("paper" or "analogue", as aficionados call them) cigarettes to realise that part of the reason for their popularity is to get round various smoking bans. Indeed, here in Britain, where it's illegal to smoke in bars, parks, trains, or railway stations (even out of doors), and there is an army of fixed-penalty-notice-doling jobsworths employed by local Councils to gather additional tax by the back door to spend on the chief exec's new Jag improve the health of the nation, and where soon one will not be allowed to smoke in one's own car (which will no doubt require the employment of more enforcement officers and the collection of more royal portraits for the council big dinners kitty protection of innocent, vulnerable, children from the depredations of the evil tobacco corps), vaping is kind of not covered by all this. Indeed, one can vape on a train, in a park, in a cinema, in a pub, or anywhere else, and when Mr B. Ellender from the London Borough of Fuck You comes along to try to fine you, you can blow your water vapour in his clammy face and tell him to go stick his head in a pig. You can't put it out on said face, though, the orange LED some vapers have in the tip is heatless. Which is another advantage over analogue smoking, surely - less fire risk if you fall asleep with one lit up.
Vaping is also less malodorous than analogue smoking as well.
It is also said that vapers, while they are not as of yet certificated as a genuine smoking cessation product, are less prejudicial to health than analogue fags because other than water vapour and nicotine and flavourings, there is no tar or carbon monoxide or any one of the 600 other alarming chemicals of varying safety added to the reconstituted sheet tobacco (floor sweepings) that falls off the fruity Cuban girls' thighs and that goes into paper cigarettes. A study in 2010 by the Boston University School of Public Health claims that "analogue" ciggies are around 1,000 times more carcinogenic than e-cigarettes. As such, despite the gnashing of teeth from the anti-smoking industry and the jobsworths who pushed for smoking bans, it would be difficult to justify a vaping ban in my estimation. (Though this didn't stop the powers that be outright lying to us over the cause for their actions in the past.) That being said, the stuff does contain nicotine which is still addictive and not a pleasant thing to have in one's system.
Still, it annoys people I don't like which is always a good thing.
(IRON NODER 2011, 16/30)