Can electronic cigarettes help you quit smoking and what are they anyway?

Asked recently to write about electronic cigarettes, I have to confess that I had never heard of such a thing. Some internet research later and I discovered that electronic cigarettes are very much a quickly growing concern. A Google search revealed there is no smoke without fire as almost six million results just for the phrase "electronic cigarette" were returned.

In existence for about three years, the electronic cigarette is a unique device intended to allow smokers to continue smoking but with either none or vastly reduced health concerns. According to many electronic cigarette distributers they are also very helpful for quitting smoking altogether.

Now in a fourth generation, electronic cigarettes have become much more user friendly than earlier versions which perhaps were a little too large to encourage a mass market appeal. The "mini" is the most realistic e cigarette to date with its length of 100mm being the same as a conventional cigarette.

An electronic cigarette contains a taste of tobacco but none of the harmful substances found in normal cigarettes allowing smokers cravings to be satisfied without inhaling the many dangerous toxins. Is it all smoke and mirrors? Or can this item really be the saviour it wants to be?

A battery, an atomiser and a renewable nicotine chamber allows the smoker to hold and smoke the electronic cigarette just as they would any other cigarette, even creating a "smoke" like vapour and glow at the end as they draw. The nicotine chamber proves very useful as cartridges are available in different strengths, permitting the user to reduce the amount of nicotine they intake until if they wish, can quit completely.

At a time when money is tighter than ever, distributors of electronic cigerattes have estimated that a huge eighty per cent saving can be made compared to smoking normal cigarettes as a typical nicotine cartridge lasts as long as fifteen to twenty normal cigarettes.

Appearing to be a much healthier alternative at least on the surface, dig a little deeper and more benefits seem reveal themselves. Smoking legally in public being one. As there are no known harmful substances being emitted from the electronic cigarette it does not fall into the same legal trappings of normal cigarettes. Smokers could remain in their warm office, restaurant or pub and smoke their electronic cigarette.

None smokers also will benefit, as their worries about passive smoking are rendered null and void by the electronic cigarette. A much more sociable environment then!

Upon reflection the electronic cigarette is a healthier, cheaper and environmentally friendly alternative to smoking and as the awareness and the market grows they have great potential to successfully replace the harmful cigarettes we have all come to know and many of us have come to dread and fear.