Want to kick the real butt?

Slow Poison

Everybody knows how smoking cigarettes can be injurious to health and how many side effects it has.

Different kinds of cancer are caused by smoking, the most common being lung and throat cancer. Smoking can also decrease the body’s immunity system, due to which smokers are more prone to diseases such as bronchitis and pneumonia. Smoking can also cause weaker bones and yellow teeth. Wrinkling and bad skin occur with time, and stamina is reduced due to decreased blood circulation leading to rapid heartbeat and shortage of breath.

There are many other day-to-day issues related to smoking as well, such as bad breath and a bad smell from hair and hands. Despite this, many are addicted to it and few want to kick the butt.

But there is a new technique for those smokers who want to quit: electronic cigarettes, or ‘e-cigarettes’. They have the same appearance, taste, and feel of cigarettes, and can be smoked.

However, this smoke is caused by air-sensing switches, intelligent control circuits, smart chips, high-tech lithium-ion batteries and other microelectronic devices. It is essentially different from cigarettes.

The electronic cigarette can be used as a harm reduction technique for those who want to quit smoking. This cigarette is far healthier than ordinary cigarettes. Electronic cigarettes don’t contain tar, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrocyanic acid, acrolein, arsenic, lead, mercury and other harmful substances. Electronic cigarettes don’t burn and aren’t a fire hazard.

These cigarettes are made up of four parts: an indicator light, battery component, liquid container and a cartromiser.

“I started smoking e-cigarettes because I wanted to quit smoking. It’s like a normal cigarette with very little nicotine in it,” says Aditya Pragada, a smoker.

Another chain smoker, Rajat Bhatia, says, “I do not think I can smoke such fake cigarettes, since nothing can beat the ‘pleasure’ which I get from my daily dose of normal cigarettes.”