Cheap Cigarettes

Raw: shooting at fedex facility in atlanta

May 20th, 2014

Police say at least 6 people have been injured in a shooting at a FedEx center in metro Atlanta. (April 29)

Techno file: at last, a painless way to give up smoking (but not nicotine)

Bbc news – tough eu smoking rules approved

SOME things but not many just wouldn t be the same without cigarettes. Take movies, for example. Take cigarettes out of some of them and you re left with either no movie at all or with characters who fall a bit flat without a cigarette hanging from their lips or plumes of perfectly back lit smoke belching forth from their lungs.

Without them, there wouldn t be a Coffee and Cigarettes, directed by Jim Jarmusch, much less the celebrated third short film (of 11) in the movie, Coffee and Cigarettes Somewhere in California, which features Iggy Pop and Tom Waits drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes while making awkward conversation about how they no longer smoke cigarettes, among other inanities.

Brad Pitt s Tyler Durden in Fight Club wouldn t be the same without cigarettes. Nor would Clint Eastwood s Blondie in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Johnny Depp s Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Audrey Hepburn s Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany s John Travolta s Danny Zuko in Grease Marlon Brando s Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire or even Jamie Foxx s Django Freeman in Django Unchained.

The list goes on.

Of course, without cigarettes, there d be much less lung cancer, heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but that s another story.

Well, it s actually a part of this story too.

Despite having “given up giving up” smoking (my last attempt, the start of which was documented in this column with the hope that a few smartphone apps and social media would help to keep me on the wagon, ended abruptly after just three months), I m at it again with assistance from a distinctly different type of technology and without the anxiety and pressure that come with having given up smoking.

Electronic cigarettes (e cigarettes) are nothing new but they have improved in leaps and bounds since their invention by Chinese pharmacist Hon Lik in 2003. Early incarnations were expensive and ugly, attempting for some reason not only to simulate the sensation of smoking but also the appearance of a lit cigarette and doing neither particularly well. I tried one of those about four years ago and it didn t even come close to convincing me that it was a viable alternative to cigarettes.

Modern versions, also known as personal vaporisers or electronic nicotine delivery systems, drop the pretence of looking like cigarettes and pretty much replicate the experience of smoking them.

There is a wide variety of brands available in South Africa, both online and in physical shops, and, after considerable research, I decided to try a device made by Dutch company Janty and sold in South Africa as Twisp. The initial cost is about R700 (or R1,000 for two), with subsequent costs being for replacement atomiser coils and the flavoured “e liquids” that they vaporise, releasing nicotine into your body with none of the chemicals and carbon monoxide that make smoking cigarettes so bad for you. And, of course, without the foul smelling smoke and the ash. Twisp also sells what it calls a “homeopathic” range, which is nicotine free, but I think I ll happily stay a nicotine addict if I can get my fix in such an inoffensive and inexpensive way.

I m such a heavy smoker that even the initial financial outlay was vastly cheaper than my average monthly spending on cigarettes which is, of course, another major draw card.

Four days after first using the device, I ve had absolutely no withdrawal symptoms (and I know from experience how bad those can be) and the improvement in my senses of taste and smell are tangible.

I still consider myself to be a smoker, but why the hell would I smoke cigarettes when I can smoke e cigarettes instead? And although Coffee and Cigarettes Somewhere in California would just be lame if Tom Waits and Iggy Pop were puffing on e smokes instead of real smokes, I feel it is safe to say “I have tasted the future of smoking.”