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Battery-powered Cigarettes?
Roland Piquepaille writes "According to Ananova, a Swiss company has developed a totally new type of smoke-free cigarette. You will be able to use it in non-smoking restaurants, and even in airplanes -- if you care for nicotine. But the PRAVDA, from Russia, adds that the product is far from perfect. It looks like a cigarette, it's used as a cigarette, but it's not a cigarette at all. Each pseudo-cigarette consists of a replaceable 'filter' containing the nicotine, and a heating element working on a battery, recharged by the 'pack' of cigarettes. The company, NicStic, says its product is good for smokers because it doesn't contain any tar, and for non-smokers, because there is obviously not passive smoking effect. It plans to introduce the product in Germany in about a year for a price similar as normal cigarettes. This overview contains more details about this pseudo-cigarette which might be sold in the U.S. in the near future."
I don't think it'll find much success, because it won't be as 'cool' as a regular cigarette. Much of th e reason people start to smoke (at the young age) is the ability to flip the ligher (in a cool way), light the cigarette (in a cool way), and exhale the smoke - in a cool way, looking like a suave motherfucker.
You do alot more than piss off the non-smokers, you kill them. Please stop.
...because there is obviously no passive smoking effect.
1) User of this new contraption breathes a lung-full of nicotine-air mixture.
2) Some of the nicotine from the air is deposited in user's lungs, providing whatever pleasures smokers get from it.
3) The rest of the nicotine-air mixture (although a bit less concentrated) is expelled from user's lungs and into the surrounding atmosphere.
4) An anonymous non-smoking bystander breathes some of the remaining nicotine that the user expelled a few moments.
5) Some of the nicotine is deposited in his lungs against his will.
No passive smoking effect? Yeah right...
(I don't smoke if you haven't figured that out yet)
most smokers smoke because Nicotine is an adictive depressant. You'll find that the bulk of smokers are in high stress jobs, especially poorly paying ones. People generally don't smoke because they want to. It's something they tried as a kid, and now that they're an adult, with all the stress and misery that comes with adulthood, they can't stop.
A better solution would be to force the tobacco companies to sell Nicotine free cigarettes. Not that they ever will. I remember a story in Wired where the only people who would grow them were the Amish. After all, what multi-national corp in its right mind would take out what makes its product popular? The funny thing is Nicotine is odorless and tasteless, so taking it out wouldn't hurt the 'cool, crisp' taste of your smokes one bit, but you might just loose your reason for smoking along the way...
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Anything which reduces the health barrier to nicotine addiction is a bad thing. Period.
Why? If nicotine isn't harmful in and of itself, what's wrong with someone voluntarily using it? Nobody seems to complain about caffeine addiction after all.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
If you're around secondhand smoke a lot, over a long period of time -- like if you're married to a smoker or you spend several years working in smoky bars or casinos or wherever -- there's a good chance this will cause some health problems of some kind. If you get a lungful of cigarette smoke once in a while as you leave a building or pull up next to a smoker at a red light or visit friends/relatives who smoke or watch movies where the characters smoke, it's not going to hurt you.
Think of it this way: Big Macs are unhealthy. Cyanide is also unhealthy. The difference is that eating one Big Mac isn't going to kill you. Cigarettes are unhealthy like Big Macs. If you smoke, quit, and if you don't smoke, don't start. But at the same time, don't freak out over every cubic millimeter of cigarette smoke that happens to touch you.
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
'Secondary smoke' is no more dangerous than anything else.
I suppose that's why I get a severe asthma attack from second hand smoke. The only other thing that gives me as bad an attack are sulfites - used to be used to preserve fresh foods. No longer generally recommended as safe. (GRAS)
But hey, I guess decades of studies could be wrong. Perhaps you know better.
Or perhaps you are simply in denial. Apply Occam's razor liberally over affected area until delusions subside. If conditions worsen, please see your local FDA representative.
-Adam
I'm not even on the side of the smokers, but I'm definately not on your side. I have a young relative with Cystic Fibrosis, and if we're in a situation where her breathing might become impaired, she'll don a mask. We've either asked people to politely quit smoking, or leave if it was at the end of our meal. When we're sick ourselves and handling her, we'll don masks ourselves.
But mandate laws around you? Grow a backbone and quit whining on a web site.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?