Plan B Forum

I was a smoker for many years. I've tried various methods to quit in the past from cold turkey to patches, gum and even the dreaded Champix. None worked for me. Then, somebody pointed me in the direction of 2nd & 3rd generation e-cigarettes (note: not the shitty cigalike ones with the glowing LED on the tip which are worse than useless). A little research informed me that it is illegal to buy nicotine liquid for these devices in Australia but okay to import it from overseas for personal use.

A week later my overseas order arrived and I was ready to go. That was nearly five weeks ago. I haven't smoked a single cigarette since. I haven't had the urge or the need to smoke a single cigarette since. I started on the recommended nicotine level for my cigarette intake (18mg) but am already down to 12mg and doing okay. I've converted about a dozen smokers at work to these PVs (personal vaporisers) and all but one have had the same success as me. The 'unsuccessful' one has cut her daily smokes from 30 to 5 so far...

And then, last week, this happened:

E-cigarette sales in WA stubbed out

The West Australian
Tim Clarke The West Australian April 15, 2014, 5:39 am

Selling electronic cigarettes has effectively been banned in WA after the Supreme Court ruled the products were designed to look like the real thing - breaching State tobacco control laws.

Last year, the WA Health Department brought a test case against a Duncraig company selling e-cigarettes online, under the banner Heavenly Vapours.

The battery-powered devices do not burn tobacco but turn nicotine or fruit flavours into vapour which is inhaled and exhaled.

It is illegal under Australian law to sell e-cigarettes containing nicotine.

But the department prosecution argued it was also illegal to sell e-cigarettes containing no nicotine, because the law prohibits the sale of any food, toy or other product which is designed to resemble a cigarette or cigar.

A magistrate originally ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the two types of e-cigarettes sold looked like real cigarettes.

But after an appeal from WA health bosses, Supreme Court Justice Janine Pritchard ruled selling e-cigarettes in WA should result in a trader being prosecuted.

"Evidence supported the conclusion that the items were used for inhaling vapour (whether or not containing nicotine) through the mouth, which was exhaled in a manner reminiscent of the smoke from a cigarette," Justice Pritchard said.

Vince Van Heerden, owner of Heavenly Vapours, has begun an appeal to "crowdfund" the $50,000 he says he needs to continue his legal battle, saying the case has ruined him financially.

Australian Council on Smoking and Health president Mike Daube said the judgment was an important step in the continuing battle against smoking.

Last year, the Cancer Council of WA called for the promotion, sale and use of e-cigarettes to be banned, arguing they could become starter products for children and ex-smokers.

Mr Van Heerden is due to be sentenced next month.

Story

Brilliant! So the WA Health Department are banning these items outright and are doing so backed by the Cancer Council no less... A Council who are citing a lack of research as the reason for their opposition to PVs... A Council who a right minded person might expect to be falling over themselves to get the research done in the hope of cutting incidences of cancer caused by smoking.

It's only a matter of time before this lunacy spreads across the rest of the country, possession itself is banned and many ex-smokers find themselves presented with the choice of becoming a criminal, going back to their ineffective 'approved' Big Pharma quit aids or heading out to the supermarket to buy a pack of perfectly legal cancer bullets.

BTW, the Cancer Council actively promote the Nicorette inhaler device in WA. A device which has the same hand-to-mouth movement and vapour exhalation that they are concerned about (not to mention about half a dozen chemicals not present in PV liquid). The cynic in me might suggest that they are not promoting this purely out of the goodness of their hearts...

I'm a switcher to vaping too. Started out on cig-a-likes and switched to clearomiser in January, I buy UK manufactured liquid as I'm a bit distrustful of the Chinese ones. Got two tanks, one for fruity flavours and one for minty flavours. Going to invest in a second battery too as there's nothing more depressing than that sad little "blink blink blink blink" of an expired battery.

It's huge over here now, my tiny town has two dedicated ecig stores as well as a couple of other stores selling e-liquid as a sideline.

Worryingly there's chatter here about it being either banned or at least heavily regulated, if it becomes heavily regulated we'll be left with just the "big tobacco" versions of ecigs which frankly are a rip off (njoy king are seven quid and don't even last a day of moderate use) and you're stuck with a couple of "flavours" that aren't that good. Though it sounds like those aren't even an option in WA.

The big tobacco and big pharma companies are shitting themselves over ecigs and governments must be seeing a drop in duty from tobacco revenues dropping.

I think we're in a period of regulatory and commercial adjustment to a new thing. Social adustment as well.

Nicotine is a category 4 (worst) for health in the NFPA ratings (NJ and one other has it a '3') so it does need to be addressed in some systematic way. It will take time for all of the issues to be brought out and worked out. In the chemical business, they don't generally sell things to the general public which are that dangerous.

Overall I think it should be supported as a way of quitting cigarettes but should not be promoted as a 'life-habit'. The rush to profit from it by the big tobacco companies is revolting; they are using the same advertising method to sell it to kids that they did with cigarettes.

I haven't seen people 'vaping' in person but in film they are exhaling large clouds of visible vapor (it is unknown how much is not visible). I wonder if the concentration is below the OSHA limit for occupational expoosure? 0.5mg per cubic meter.

yrs,
rubato

The harm from smoking cigarettes is so great and so well-known that it might be a reasonable thing to make yourself a test subject for this new method of adminstration; but I would urge that it be viewed as a transition step to quitting both and not just as a replacement.

http://blog.ghs.org/tag/liquid-nicotine/

yrs,
rubato

I did sme THC in a vaporizer last week.

haven't seen people 'vaping' in person but in film they are exhaling large clouds of visible vapor (it is unknown how much is not visible). I wonder if the concentration is below the OSHA limit for occupational expoosure? 0.5mg per cubic meter.

From what I've read, even cigarettes don't produce that high a concentration of nicotine (usually around 30 micrograms per cubic meter) , and e-cigarettes produce nicotine concentrations about one third of traditional cigarettes, with the balance primarily water vapor and some organics that are used as food additives. But in a closed room with dozens using the devices, it remains to be seen.

Actually I believe nicotine is an additive even in regular coffin nails, the tar comes with the tobacco though

Tobacco contains nicotine. Some tobacco companies have been accused of adding it to cigarettes to increase addiction.

I stand corrected

The amount of nicotine in the exhaled vapour is miniscule. And unlike people smoking real cigarettes in a closed room, when the ecig isn't being drawn on it produces no vapour at all, so there's very little comparison between the two in the case of second hand "smoke".

Nicotine on its own is about as harmful as caffeine, you'd probably get more nicotine eating a couple of tomatoes than sitting next to someone vaping.

Daisy wrote:The amount of nicotine in the exhaled vapour is miniscule. And unlike people smoking real cigarettes in a closed room, when the ecig isn't being drawn on it produces no vapour at all, so there's very little comparison between the two in the case of second hand "smoke".

Nicotine on its own is about as harmful as caffeine, you'd probably get more nicotine eating a couple of tomatoes than sitting next to someone vaping.

I think you should measure those things rather than speculate.

The 0.5mg/ cu meter limit is a very small amount.

caffeine is benign compared to nicotine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine (too long to post)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Toxicology

The teratogenic properties of nicotine have been investigated. According to a study of about 77,000 pregnant women in Denmark,[citation needed] women who used nicotine gum and patches during the early stages of pregnancy were found to face an increased risk of having babies with birth defects. The study showed that women who used nicotine-replacement therapy in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy had a 60% greater risk of having babies with birth defects compared to women who were non-smokers.[citation needed]

Tobacco use among pregnant women has also been correlated to increased frequency of ADHD. Children born to mothers who used tobacco were two and a half times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD.[73] Froelich estimated that "exposure to higher levels of lead and prenatal tobacco each accounted for 500,000 additional cases of ADHD in U.S. children".[74]

Effective April 1, 1990, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) of the California Environmental Protection Agency added nicotine to the list of chemicals known to cause developmental toxicity.[75]

..............NFPA rating ........ lethal dose for an adult human ........ teratogen ....
Caffeine .... 2 ...................... 10,000 mg (10 grams) .................. no ..........
Nicotine .... 4 ....................... 500-1000 mg (0.5 - 1.0 grams)........ yes ........

The nicotine contents of vegetables
After spending an extraordinarily long time figuring out exactly how much nicotine eggplants contained, I found a proper source and made this page to make Google more helpful in the future. The data is taken from the New England Journal of Medicine vol 329 p437, available here.

Vegetable Nicotine in ng/g g per 1µg nicotine
Cauliflower 16.8 59.5
Eggplant (Aubergine) 100.0 10
Potatoes 7.1 140
Green tomatoes 42.8 23.4
Ripe tomatoes 4.3 233.0
Pureed tomatoes 52.0 19.2

1µg of nicotine is the equivalent of sitting in a vaguely smoke filled room for three hours. A cigarette contains about 7mg of nicotine, of which 1mg is absorbed. In other words, 100g of eggplant contains 0.01mg of nicotine, and 10kg of eggplant is equivalent to one cigarette. However, absorbtion rates from ingestion are low and nicotine is quickly metabolised, so the effect isn't nearly the same.

yrs,
rubato

Hey Sean how's the vaping going for you? I know RB is a total convert from her haul photos on Facebook.

Hubby just bought me a new setup for my birthday, an Evod bottom filler tank and a variable voltage battery, he also got me a bottle of gorgeous craft juice.

http://www.halcyonhaze.co.uk/shop/sweet-prudence/

It is divine.

Very well cheers Dais... About four and a half months since I've had a smoke and absolutely no withdrawal symptoms.

It seems more and more likely that Big Pharma are going to succeed in getting vaping banned in Australia so I've been planning ahead. I'm building/wicking my own coils, mixing my own juice and have enough battery mods, mech mods and rebuildable atomisers to see me through a few years.

I'll be buggered if those evil, greedy cunts in government are going to force me back to smoking!

RB is indeed a total convert - hadn't realised Sean was a fellow vaper. For me this has been like finding the holy grail after 35 years of smoking, I have been cigarette free for 3 months - I had tried everything to quit previously but the truth was I didn't want to quit, and the same applied going into vaping I didn't intend to quit, the plan had always been that I'd "dual fuel" at no point did I or anyone else say that I couldn't have a fag if I wanted one, and that still applies, if I want one I can have one, but for the past 3 months since taking up vaping - I simply haven't wanted one. I have twice lit a stinky out of curiosity given just how much I thought I loved my fags, both times I put it out after a mere 2 or 3 puffs and reached for my vape instead, anyone who knows me in real life would consider that to be little short of a miracle.

My haul photos that Daisy refers to now show only a fraction of my set up I belong to a very active vaping forum and with their help and from researching myself I very quickly went from a basic starter kit through to the vv set up and protanks I use at the moment. I did a quick tally of my e-iquids last month just out of curiosity and at that time I had 340mls of juice at 18mg or 12mg in 19 different flavors to choose from (none of them tobacco) without checking this morning that has probably risen to somewhere around 25 flavours and over 400ml but the strength of any new purchases is dropping to 12mg. I vape several flavours during the day I always have 3 different devices and tanks set up with 3 different flavours, a very strong mint, a blow your head off menthol to which I add black cherry or strawberry, and the third either something fruity or sweet or aniseedy and I use a dripper for when I just fancy trying lots of different dessert flavours.

I buy equipment and juice quite happily from china - an awful lot of juice and equipment is made there and repackaged in the UK anyway but I also buy from USA and UK and tend nowadays to vape all kinds of premium mixes I've even been sent free juice samples from vendors and producers to review.

Healthwise the benefits of switching to vaping have been extraordinary, within a couple of weeks I had stopped coughing myself awake in the morning, the irritating and persistant clearing of throat and little cough that I had has stopped totally, I can draw a deep breath without hearing the horrible wheezy congestion in my chest, my sense of taste returned very quickly, my sense of smell took a little longer but is now very clear. I no longer smell of stale tobacco and my breath is much nicer according to my hubby. My blood pressure has dropped a few points and my family are all happy to sit in a room with me vaping away.

I tend to prefer to be a faff free as possible so whilst I can recoil my heads I choose not to as the premades are cheap as chips when bought in china, I also don't mix my own liquid simply because I know damned well if I start down that road thats even more of my "savings" that will disappear though I am on Armageddon watch so the instant it appears likely that they'll bring in any legislation restricting juices I'll be buying gallons of nic base which will be the only ingredient they can possibly restrict and mixing my own.

I set up an excel spreadsheet not long after I made the switch that way I can keep a tally on how much I am spending on vaping vs the stinkies in the beginning I wasn't saving a huge amount because I was spending almost a much on nice new vaping toys having had a touch of shineyitis, but now I've just about settled on my kit it's dropped down though things do seem to end up in my basket at fasttech without me noticing like the stealth mod that is on its way here as we speak but I've worked out that by making the switch over 3 months and having taken off what I've spent on vape gear I've still saved over £300 and each month that amount increases. More importantly I have not smoked 1820 cigarettes!!

Yes they are trying to bring in controls and bans in the UK - based on suspect science and political bias - we are fighting it and latest research has been revealing some very interesting results, now I'm not a scientist like Rube so rely on reading the conclusions and summaries rather than the data but all of the research is out there for anyone to find and read, along with a whole hell of a lot of support for vaping from the most unlikely of sources - such as the head of ASH and the BMA - there are even GP's in the UK who have opened Vape Stores alongside their surgeries. What is also becoming very clear is how threatened big pharma and big tobacco are by vaping and unfortunately they have a hell of a lot of money and political clout to bring to the battle so there is a lot of misinformation, disinformation and down right suspect "findings" around as well.

Anyone who is interested might like to take a look at some of these links -

http://www.clivebates.com/?p=2282 - Some hard messages for the tobacco control establishment – Peter Hajek at the Global Forum on Nicotine conference. Professor Peter Hajek uses the conference keynote, the Michael Russell oration, to explain through the work of Michael Russell (1932-2009) and his protégés the case for tobacco harm reduction.

http://www.ecita.org.uk/blog/index.php/ ... -e-liquid/ - How Toxic Is E-Liquid? Expert report recommends reclassification of nicotine solutions under CLP (Regulation 1272/2008)

http://www.ecigarette-research.com/web/ ... p/research - list of research articles

http://www.clivebates.com/?p=2197 - Arguing about e-cigarettes – a Q&A

http://www.clivebates.com/?p=2257 - Turning the tables on public health – let’s talk about the risks *they* create

http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g4597/rr/760890 - Scientific evidence clearly indicates e-cigarettes are considerably less harmful than tobacco cigarettes

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2261/14/78/abstract - Acute effects of using an electronic nicotine-delivery device (electronic cigarette) on myocardial function: comparison with the effects of regular cigarettes

Good on ya RB!

When I got into vaping I had no intention of it becoming anything more than a means to stop smoking but I don't need to tell you how easy it is to get caught up in the whole thing...

I started with spinners, went from there to MVPs and a Vamo*, then mech mods and am awaiting a Hana dna20 clone from slowtech (which I won in a forum giveaway).
I still love my protanks and cartos for out and about use but you just can't beat the flavour you get from a dripper stuffed with cotton!
I will not be sub-ohming... I have no need for clouds or potentially losing half my face in a battery explosion.

*Vamos are dirt cheap these days and if you think vv is good, wail until you try vw!

I think I saw a Vamo V5 for around a tenner on slowtech and was tempted, the MVP Shine has been in my cart more times than I can remember but I have yet to press checkout simply because I'm still a little unconvinced I "need" vw lol my forum mates keep trying to get me to go SVD but thats a bit too big for my liking plus its a fingerprint magnet so that'll drive me nuts. I loveeeee my protanks especially with the airflow controllers - got some clones on their way from slowtech and I have loads of different colour tanks, beauty rings and drip tips, I keep looking at the Nautilus because I really like the look of the cage sleeve but the fact its a rebuildable is putting me off a bit. I use a bauway 306 bridged atty for dripping - cheap and disposable and does me fine. I'm not over keen on my spinners - the v2 isn't anywhere near as good as it should be for a 1650mAh and is a royal pain to charge but does me for now. This morning I was lusting after an x-fire wooden mod had it in my basket ready to go when I decided to have a look and see if I could find a discount code and instead found a dozen forum posts warning against using that vendor at all - so for now thats on my wish list. I really fancy the new Smok 2000 vv/vw twist but thats so flipping new theres no UK stockists yet.

Like you I can't see the appeal of sub-ohming and I'm not a big cloud chaser though I've got a few 50/50 juices that produce screen obscuring clouds which are good enough for me lol out and about I stick with my 1100 egos and mini protanks as I can hang them from a lanyard for hands free when driving - I've yet to see anything "hands free" for a vamo LOL the little atty stand stealth mod thing I have on its way is purely to see how I like a side by side mini set up as I quite fancy either a Gizmo or Microstick for my birthday but do not want to spend that kinda money if I don't like the size and feel of a mini mod.

We've got a couple of Aussies on the board - you should pop in and see us. http://allaboute-cigarettes.proboards.com/

Sean wrote:Very well cheers Dais... About four and a half months since I've had a smoke and absolutely no withdrawal symptoms.

It seems more and more likely that Big Pharma are going to succeed in getting vaping banned in Australia so I've been planning ahead. I'm building/wicking my own coils, mixing my own juice and have enough battery mods, mech mods and rebuildable atomisers to see me through a few years.

I'll be buggered if those evil, greedy cunts in government are going to force me back to smoking!

Its all available here...I'm sure someone in the US would be willing to send you someof whatever you cannot get locally. (I would.)

The lass at the shop in Skegness that we went to yesterday was using the vamo v5 she let me test one of the other halcyon haze juices in it. Cookie said it looked like a bong!

That is probably more acceptable than anything that looks like a cigarette.

Jarlaxle wrote:

Sean wrote:Very well cheers Dais... About four and a half months since I've had a smoke and absolutely no withdrawal symptoms.

It seems more and more likely that Big Pharma are going to succeed in getting vaping banned in Australia so I've been planning ahead. I'm building/wicking my own coils, mixing my own juice and have enough battery mods, mech mods and rebuildable atomisers to see me through a few years.

I'll be buggered if those evil, greedy cunts in government are going to force me back to smoking!

Its all available here...I'm sure someone in the US would be willing to send you someof whatever you cannot get locally. (I would.)

Cheers Jarl. The only thing not available in Australia as things stand is nicotine base which I can easily source from overseas right now (even though it'd technically illegal to possess nicotine in Queensland unless it's in the form of a Government approved NRT product or tobacco...).
If the shit hits the fan the first thing they will do is ban imports so I'm making sure I'm well stocked up for such an occurrence.