E cigarette

It's not a bad idea, and certainly is the first alternative nicotine product that replicates a lot of the cognitive feedback and sensations that are so intricate to the positively reinforced behaviours of smokers. I've tried a few of these and have been reasonably satisfied with the experience, and during the time that I had them I pretty much was ready to never smoke a real cigarette again. It's not that the experience is comparable to real smoking, and if you expect that it is, you won't like the e-cigs; that's the wrong question to be asking. The real question is whether it's something you can make yourself switch to, not whether it's identical--it's not.

While the damn things worked, that is. The problem is that the cheap, Chinese-made technology breaks down after a few weeks, necessitating a complete replacement (and, of course, waiting for it). The vendors appear to know this: they are happy to send you a replacement unit free of charge and with no questions asked, but they won't answer any questions either. I told them I appreciated their generous warranty policy, but what I really wanted to know was, is there something I'm doing wrong with the thing that's causing the atomiser to overheat and/or stop working? To that, the response was amazingly silent. Apparently, that's just the level of product quality. I've had other problems as well -- e.g., after about a month, the batteries won't hold more than about 5 minutes of charge.

Let's just say the MTBF on these is very, very short.

If they'd actually get that part right, I could see this really taking off, Big Tobacco's efforts to kill it notwithstanding. I know Health New Zealand published a study a while back (you can find it as a footnote off the Wikipedia page about e-cigarettes) declaring that it is free of virtually all of the health hazards of real smoking, and appeared to endorse it publicly (NZ has a high per-capita smoking population).

A more relevant link was posted a few days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=638479

This is an advertisement.

We've been selling electronic cigarettes in the last year. As a smoking addict I've tried a couple of times but no satisfaction.

First of all it is heavy, uncomfortable to hold in your hand. Then the sensation is far from usual tobacco products: you can't feel, taste the smoke because there is no smoke just some light puffing.

At the beginning we've sold many of them with regular refills but now sales are dropped.

There are 1000's of people selling the electronic cigarette right now. This is one Chinese site of many. Currently, two large American distributors who were selling in bricks & mortar stores are in a legal battle with the FDA who started confiscating shipments around last April. They argue the FDA had no jurisdiction to do so. The judge's verdict is expected next week. Smaller home based operators are still managing to get the product into America though some have had random shipments taken.

I keep a slinkset updated with info: http://e-cignews.com