WHAT SHALL WE CHAT ABOUT?

[Jayway]

Dear Choccy, why on earth dont you buy small cigars, even the street vendor near Sinbads used to sell them. They are made of leaves, they have no chemical paper so they go out all the time, not burn down like your cigarettes. So you wont do so much damage to your lungs and you wont stink so much .. haaaa haaaa .. OK ?

[Grandad]

I DID make an effort to stop in the early eighties, well a half hearted effort. I used to chew the nicotine gum at work, then in my break I would sneak up to my car in the car park and have a ciggy.....how ridiculous was that. So believe me RS and Choccy, I DO know how hard it is to stop.

I actually told a fib in an earlier post because I too have smoked the occasional shisha but that did not encourage me to go further. I just enjoyed the various flavours available.

[Horus]

I have never touched anything with Nicotine in since I stopped smoking, why? because I know that if I had just one cigarette I would start smoking all over again, I treat smoking the same way that an alcoholic would have to treat drinking. I also agree with Choccy about the 'born again' none smokers, they can be a pain in the butt if they continually go on about people smoking, that is something I try never to do and I am quite tolerant of others smoking around me, but if asked I will always encourage them to give up as it is proven to be a killer habit worse than most other vices.

Now as to these E-Cigarettes as they are called, I can only say that I know several people who gave up cigarettes in favour of using one of those and it seemed an easy transition, the bonus in the UK is that it works out considerably cheaper than smoking tobacco, unless of course they decide it is a nice form of income for the taxman.

The more sophisticated ones look a bit like the top end of a Shisha pipe and come in various designs and colours, basically they have a battery and a heating coil that instantly converts a flavoured nicotine liquid into something that looks like real smoke, but it is a water vapour and you inhale it the same. You have to buy the refill liquids and top up the (Usually) glass tank on the device and I suppose charge them up on a regular basis, I also believe that the heater coils have to be replaced fairly often too, but overall they are a lot cheaper than cigarettes, but how they would compare to what people pay in Egypt I could not say, certainly UK wise it is about a third of the cost of normal smoking.

As to how safe they are I cannot say because who knows if the nicotine mixture is not going to create some future problems for the smoker? all we know at the moment is that you are not inhaling the tars and other stuff contained in tobacco. You are still inhaling Nicotine so it is still addictive in some way and that is where Choccy failed with his Shisha, even though he did not inhale it was still in his mouth and the Nicotine passed into his system through his mouths surface blood vessels and gave him his nicotine hitl.

I am not advocating them in any way and you should make up your own minds, but short of them causing some other unknown disease or side effect they do strike me as being marginally safer than tobacco because of the lack of tar. The biggest problem that I can see is that as there is no regulation (at the moment) governing these devices then you really don't know what they contain in the smoking liquid, so that could be a problem in places like Egypt with all it's fake goods.

You should look at all these videos and see for yourself, the good, the bad & the ugly and view them all:

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[Choccy]

Goodness me Horus there is a lot of information to digest, I really must try an electric cigarette just to see how much difference I think I have seen someone smoking one because at first I thought it was a pipe the end actually lit up blue.... that big thing on video two looks a monstrosity that would be a laugh to see someone with one of those, it looks like a surgical instrument.

[Horus]

Choccy I agree that there is a lot of information, but it is as well that you understand everything beforehand including any perceived medical risks, then at least you can make up your own mind that is why I tried to give you all the facts

[Choccy]

Thanks for that, I will check around Luxor and see if these Electric Cigarettes are available. It seems though that maybe they are not tried and tested fully to see if there are any long lasting effects, but at least you would not be getting all the bad chemicals and rubbish that they put into normal cigarettes these days.

[Grandad]

Choccy they are becoming more popular here and there are even small shops that deal only in e-cigarettes, in all their various shapes and sizes.

[Horus]

I have a contact in this field and will try to find out a bit more about it for you
If it were not for all the customs problems Choccy we could start up a little import and sales bussiness between us selling them

[Choccy]

Yes may be a good little earner ha ha!!!

[LovelyLadyLux]

WOW - quite a long thread about talking!

@ Grandad - please give my best regards to Mrs Grandad. That is quite a procedure she has been going through and because it relates to eyesight and seeing it must be very worrisome. Hopefully it will all turn out really well for her. It really is quite amazing what science is researching, accomplishing, inventing and generally doing. Lots of advances in so many areas. I do hold a belief that if only more efforts could go into medical research we'd be finding lots more cures for lots more diseases we have no cure(s) for 'yet.'

Re: The Blue - it is hard sometimes to post on there as one never knows the response one will get. I can no longer get too much energy going to post about anything serious as replies are most often cryptic, not serious, confrontational blah blah blah. Kinda sad because I do remember when I first started posting that it was a very interesting forum with a wide variety of posters with genuine informed opinions. Of late there has really been nothing of interest posted. Lots of same old/same old.

Re: Cigarettes - Have personally never smoked at all but I can be a preacher and/or harp on about it so I'll spare you all and not comment further but will say that the new E-cigarettes do seem to be becoming really popular.

Re: photo contests - will contribute when I get back to my photos but would be a much more interesting contest if more people contributed