Sup. I was a smoker in my uni days, but quickly lost the joy of it once my time began to be structured around, you know, doing stuff, and meeting people responsible for paying you reeking of smoke generally doesn't go down well. So I decided to quit. Unfortunately, I ran into a couple of problems. I don't really want to quit. I enjoy smoking, particularly when I'm out drinking. So, my initial attempts to quit generally went well for a couple of weeks, then I'd go out and get drunk with friends (many of whom smoke) and inevitably end up smoking (drunken willpower is an oxymoron) and then wake up in the morning with a half-smoked pack of cigs on my desk and I'd pick them up and go "oh i'll just finish these off..." and before you know it I'm trying to cram two smokes into my fifteen minute morning break before legging it back upstairs to the office. Addiction's a bitch, isn't it? Through people at work, I was introduced to e-cigs. I was intrigued. Everyone who used them swore it let them completely kick the habit overnight. They got their sense of smell back. They could breathe. They didn't have to consume nicotine in cigarette-sized bursts. It was 1/10th the price. [And, perhaps most importantly, after one of our senior ops guys switched to them, vaping in the office suddenly became ok - GODSEND]. So, I decided to follow their example. They were right. All of it. Right. Literally overnight you can stop smoking. You just don't [i]want[/i] to smoke. And when you do it's like your first again - hacky, disgusting and nauseating. You remove all the obvious downsides to smoking without losing the pleasure of the habit, the occupation of your fingers, the slight rush of inhalation, the suppression of hunger, the social element of going outside and having a chat to all the other smokers. You're still addicted to nicotine, but you're no longer a smoker [and neither are you a slave to shockingly overpriced pharmaceutical stop-smoking-aids]. I started out using the ones you see in shops, the tiny batteries with one-use cartridges, and they're nice, but they're limited. The batteries clock in at something like 130mAh, the carts are only good for a day and while cheaper than cigs, they're still not cheap. You're also limited in terms of flavours - it's basically either "tobacco" [more like caramel - don't bother with these unless you find you really like them, you cannot reproduce the taste of tobacco without tobacco, nor would you want to] or mint. Since then I've switched to the very geek-friendly liquid versions, where you can have as large a battery as you please (mine are 1300mAh), you can have as large a tank as you please (1.6ml - enough for about 2 days) and you can vary the voltage/resistance etc. to produce the exact amount of smoke you want. Not to mention the flavours. Oh, lord, the flavours. In the short time since I switched, I've tried all sorts: apple, cherry, peppermint, orange, strawberry. All amazing. As long as the flavour is strong and generally sweet it works well, because of the composition of the base. The liquid versions are also a shit-tonne cheaper, especially if, through a bit of creative googling [or just pm me - i'll be happy to provide the link], you find the chinese wholesaler who actually produce these liquids for most of the retailers. They're more than willing to sell, even in small quantities, to international consumers. One of the big things for me is, once you've found the right vendor, the ability to specify the makeup of your product. If you're smoking cigarettes you smoke one at a time and a pack at a time. You can't really have half a cigarette and you can't really buy less than a pack. With e-cigs, I started on liquid at 36mg/ml (this is really high, twice the "normal" dose) because there's some question about the absorption of the nicotine from the vapour, and because I wanted to make it so if I did slip and have a real cig, it would do absolutely nothing for me [this worked, by the way, YMMV]. Now I'm on liquids at 12mg/ml, consuming an amount of nicotine equivalent to about 2/3 a pack of cigarettes per day. My next batch will drop down to 8mg/ml and so on and so forth. And the final thing, for me specifically, is I still go out and drink with my smoker friends and I almost always do end up smoking real cigarettes (just a few). The difference now is that I wake up, cough a load of phlegm up, think "What the -blam!- were you thinking", pick up my e-cig and vape away my day. Prior to that it would be a matter of waking up and thinking "-blam!- i really need a cig now", nipping to the shops and buying a pack, setting me back weeks. The liquids themselves [the liquids are also used in the cartridges - they just come as pre-soaked cotton] are, as far as I can ascertain (and as with all the narcotics I put my body through, I research them thoroughly) harmless. The active ingredient is obviously nicotine, which is itself potentially harmful, but the quantities involved are so small that the risk is effectively zero. The rest of the base is a mix of water and glycerine in some form (propylene glycol, vegetable glycerine etc.). These are common food additives that are categorised as "GRAS" - Generally Recognised As Safe, or in other words, we put so many tonnes of them through our body anyway we'd have spotted any problems by now so go ahead and load up on that shit. There is some question whether inhaling their vapour directly can be harmful (particularly with asthmatics), as it is certainly a very mild irritant when you start using it (this goes away after a couple of hours), but the vapour is also the stuff used in smoke machines and suchlike, so it's unlikely to pose a serious hazard. And, again, the amounts involved are small. The only big question mark is over the flavourings used. They're usually food additives, so safe in most terms, but no one's ever tested them for inhalation. It's unlikely to happen, but no one has ruled out the risk potential yet. Again, however, the amounts are tiny - 95%+ of the liquid is made up of the base, with the remainder being mostly nicotine. One thing is beyond a doubt, however. Whatever harm exists in electronic cigarettes, it is nothing compared to filling your lungs with arsenic, carbon monoxide, tar, formaldehyde, ammonia and benzene on a daily basis. Plus it's cheaper. Plus you don't smell.