As smoking laws place more restrictions on when and where one can smoke, electronic cigarettes are becoming the preferred alternative, offering smokers the opportunity to cut down on the harmful chemicals that they inhale and emit while successfully avoiding prosecution.
Smokers of tobacco cigarettes in South Africa will once again have to adjust their habits to avoid smoking in public places and near children due to recent laws passed.
“Tobacco cigarettes are not only harmful to the smoker,” says Ridwaan Ismail of Health-e-Cigarettes, a local company that has launched its electronic cigarette this year. “They are proven to be harmful to those inhaling the secondary smoke. On the other hand, e-cigarettes are not harmful to those around you, and significantly reduce the damage caused to the smoker by cutting out all carcinogenic substances.”
Instead of producing smoke from combustion, the electronic cigarette produces vapour. This vapour is created from liquid containing nicotine within the electronic cigarette.
Both odourless and colourless, the vapour is neither toxic nor harmful as a secondary smoke, making it safe to smoke in all public places.
According to the International Labour Organisation, second hand smoke kills 200 000 workers a year, while the World Health Organisation reports that almost half the children across the globe breath air polluted by tobacco cigarette smoke.
The new laws will prevent smokers from smoking in partially enclosed public areas, as well as smoking near children under the age of 18 years in an attempt to protect children from the harmful effects of second hand smoke.
“The nearly 4 000 chemical substances including Arsenic, cyanide and other carcinogenic agents, contained in tobacco cigarettes are not present in the e-cigarette, thus billing it as the `Healthy Alternative’,” says Ismail.
The cartridges used in the device, unlike tobacco butts, are also completely recyclable as they are made almost entirely of plastic, this combined with the non-toxic smoke make the e-cigarette a much more environmentally-friendly product.
Article published courtesy of Mediaweb.co.za
18 Sep 2009
Tobacco is an annual or bi-annual growing 1-3 meters tall with large sticky leaves that contain nicotine. Native to the Americas, tobacco has a long history of use as a shamanic inebriant and stimulant. It is extremely popular and well-known for its addictive potential.
Nicotiana rustica leaves.
Nicotiana rustica leaves have a nicotine content as high as 9%, whereas Nicotiana tabacum (common tobacco) leaves contain about 1 to 3%
A cigar is a tightly rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco which is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Sumatra, Philippines, and the Eastern United States.
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the fresh leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide, and in the form of nicotine tartrate it is used in some medicines. In consumption it may be in the form of cigarettes smoking, snuffing, chewing, dipping tobacco, or snus.
To have the knowledge about electronic cigarette is an advantage. It’s not as harmful as the regular cigarettes and yet you will feel the same feeling like you’re puffing on the real thing. I hope more and more studies will be made and shown for the sake of those people who thinks that it is as bad as the regular tobacco.