We all know smoking is injurious to health, but kicking the habit is next to impossible for most of us, at least till now.
Banning smoking in public places, restaurants and pubs has not helped much. And neither have products such as nicotine patches or chewing gum managed to make much impact.
But now a unique new ‘e- cigarette' marketed by a Chennai-based firm shows promise of helping one finally kick the habit.
No side-effects
These ‘Super' cigarettes or e-cigarettes are specially designed smoking sticks that give a smoker the same satisfaction as smoking a real cigarette, but without the harmful side-effects of a normal cigarette.
"E-cigarette works on the principle of nicotine replacement therapy and gives the smoker the contentment of a conventional cigarette – minus the ill effects," says Sunil Kumar, head of Chennai-based SPK marketing firm in a telephone interview with XPRESS.
The e-cigarette looks like a regular cigarette, with the white part being the battery and the filter a replaceable cartridge. When the smoker starts inhaling, the atomising chamber converts the diluted liquid nicotine into vapour, and this satisfies the smoker. The vapour evaporates soon, causing no irritation to the smoker or people next to him/her.
"It's a novel way of quitting smoking for those who have used nicotine patches or chewed chiclets," says Kumar.
According to him, a person can give up smoking in 90 days by smoking e-cigarettes.
"What the smoker does is he takes a puff from the cigarette to release vapour rather than smoke. So he gets the satisfaction of smoking; but dislikes the habit," says Kumar.
‘Super' cigarettes were launched in India on No Tobacco Day (May 31). The firm imports the products from Hong Kong.
Did you know?
Years ago the British Medical Journal came out with a study on how smoking cuts down life expectancy of a smoker. In the report, the researchers said every cigarette smoked by a person robbed him of his life expectancy by 11 minutes. They noted that if a person smoked 5,772 cigarettes on an average in a year - from the age of 17 until his death at 71 - he would have consumed 311,688 cigarettes. This, they said, would result in losing 6.5 years of his life expectancy.
