After the ban on smoking in public places, such a gadget is becoming more and more popular. The electronic cigarette is already becoming a fashion accessory.
In Europe, electronic cigarettes are becoming more and more popular - gadgets that replace conventional cigarettes. Along with their growing popularity and amid the movement to decriminalize marijuana and ecstasy, the old debate about whether it is better to ban drugs or do harm reduction has been renewed.
In London, they say, it is difficult for smokers to live. They will go to a bar, have a drink … But you can't drag on. If you dare, they'll put you out. However, one gadget has appeared that allows speakers of subtle English humor of any nationality to play a trick on tough fighters for a healthy lifestyle. You sit in a pub, smoke and think, and when they make a comment, you kindly explain that electrical appliances are not prohibited. The cigarette, they say, is electronic, bought on the website for $ 60.
The electronic cigarette looks really like a real one, even the tip “smolders” with a red light, and with each inhale a few micrograms of nicotine gets into the lungs. The electronic cigarette even produces smoke, but since it does not burn, it does not fall under the ban. After the ban on smoking in public places, such a gadget is becoming more and more popular.
It was invented by Hong Lik from the Chinese company Ruyan. The first devices were sold in May 2004 and have grown in popularity since then. It is difficult to find exact sales figures, but the leading manufacturing company - the same Ruyan - claims to have sold over 300 thousand units in 2008.
The device itself is simple. It looks like a cigarette, but the bulk of the volume is occupied by the battery and LED. The replaceable filter contains a cartridge with nicotine dissolved in propylene glycol. As you inhale, the pressure sensor turns on the heating element, which evaporates the propylene glycol and emits "smoke". The cartridges vary in strength (there are also zero nicotine cartridges), are designed for about 300 puffs and cost a dollar and a half.
In the vast majority of countries around the world, the distribution of electronic cigarettes is not regulated by law. If you sell health products, then you are within the scope of the relevant legislation, if tobacco products, then another. The electronic cigarette does not fall into either group, which gives the freedom to manufacture and distribute such products, having the usual hygiene certificate in hand.
Electronic cigarette ProVape-1. The main purpose of the device, if you believe the advertisement, is to help the smoker to get rid of the bad habit. In this sense, it is the same nicotine patch, only more stylish. Some manufacturing companies even include in their advertisements fake quotes from documents of the World Health Organization (WHO), allegedly approving the use of such cigarettes. In contrast, in September 2008, WHO issued a statement that there was no evidence of advertising and called for a worldwide ban on e-cigarettes until proven safe.
New Zealand anti-smoking fighter Murray Laugesen has been conducting research on the effects of e-cigarette use since early 2007. It is (don’t laugh!) Funded by Ruyan, but according to WHO, it is objective and independent. The preliminary results look optimistic. Each puff has been found to release just a few micrograms of water, alcohol, nicotine, propylene glycol, and fragrances. And what about carcinogens? The nitrosamines in tobacco are considered one of the main causes of cancer in smokers. Traces of such a substance, alas, are found when using electronic cigarettes, since nicotine for them is extracted from tobacco, but Dr. Laugesen believes that its concentration is not higher than in approved nicotine patches.
Carbon monoxide and carcinogens, which are by-products of combustion of tobacco and paper, the electronic cigarette, of course, does not emit and does not poison the air - good news for passive smokers. However, the cartridge contains acetaldehyde - the very chemical that "pleases" a heavy morning hangover. It is known that when it accumulates in the body, it can provoke cancer, but in the cartridge it is extremely small (five millionths of its weight), and if acetaldehyde still gets into the vapors of an electronic cigarette, its content is so negligible that it is almost immediately destroyed in the body. …
Safety or health concerns aside, how does the e-cigarette affect the psyche of the smoker? The factors that make up the smoking ritual (aroma, taste, tactile sensations) are important enough to enjoy the process. Will smokers accept the novelty? Helen Thomson, a non-smoker e-cigarette writer for New Scientist, presented an e-cigarette to her father, who smokes about a pack a day. After several days of "test drive" he complained that he had to make great efforts to tighten, the gadget is heavier than a regular cigarette, does not allow enjoying the aroma of haze, and his "filter" is hard as a stone. In general, it has little in common with an ordinary cigarette, so the "target audience" of manufacturers should still recognize smokers who want to give up their bad habit.
Electronic Cigarettes Revenge. “If an e-cigarette is found to deliver a comparable amount of nicotine to the bloodstream of regular smoking, and the device is acceptable and safe for consumers, its anti-smoking benefit cannot be overstated,” says John Britton, Nottingham Lung Disease Specialist. university. In the United States, this device was featured on The Doctors show and made it to the top ten of the most fashionable healthcare trends.
It is pertinent, however, to recall that nicotine is not alone responsible for the addiction to tobacco. Experiments on animals suggest that other substances contained in tobacco smoke inhibit up to 40% of the activity of the enzyme monoamine oxidase (MAO), that is, they act in the same way as some antidepressants. Nicotine promotes the release of dopamine, whose effect on the brain is associated with pleasure, and there is a hypothesis that MAO inhibition reduces the reuptake of dopamine, that is, the effect is doubled. An electronic cigarette cannot replace all these joys.
The electronic cigarette is already becoming a fashion accessory. Putting an end, it is difficult to resist and not advise Chinese scientists to immediately start working on electronic coffee.
Photo: wikipedia.org
