You are at the shop, buying your favourite pack of cigarettes. You hand over an exorbitant amount of money, knowing full well almost all of it goes to the government. Despite the ridiculous price, you are still forced to look at gory pictures and face dire warnings of what it will do to your health before you can enjoy a simple cigarette.

You have your first fag - you have to huddle in the freezing cold to do so, because you, as a smoker, have been labelled a killer. You inhale the cigarette smoke, although you know that it has a one in two chance of killing you.

You walk home, past the local pharmacy. Displayed in the shop window are nicotine cessation aids. You tried to quit using them last year, but like 95% of smokers were back on cigarettes within 12 months.

There has got to be a better way, you think.

And guess what - there is.

The electronic cigarette allows you the pleasure of smoking - without the tar, tobacco and combustion of regular cigarettes.

And here is why you should switch...

Money Savings

In the UK switching to an electronic cigarette will save a 20-a-day smoker more than £1500 a year. In almost all US states the savings amount to hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

What will you do with the savings?

When you are lying on a hammock slung between two palm trees, lazily gazing over a golden beach to the emerald sea, enjoying the holiday bought with your new savings, remember us!

Smoke Anywhere

In the bar, on a plane, in the pub, in the gas station at work... the e-cigarette can not be lit up, produces vapour, not smoke, and therefore can be used anywhere.

So no more huddling outside in the cold!

Secondhand Smoke

Despite patchy evidence, anti-smokers have unfairly labelled smokers as killers - not just of themselves, but of those around them.

But with three distinguished Professors of Medicine , Professor Brad Rodu, Professor Michael Siegel and Professor Carl Phillips acting quickly to squash claims by anti-smoker organisation ASH that there is a danger of passive ‘vaping', e-cigarette smokers can stop worrying about harm to other people's health.

Health

While no long term health studies have been carried into vaping, scientists such as Dr Joel Nitzkin , Chair of the Tobacco Control Task Force for the American Association of Public Health Physicians, estimate that electronic cigarettes are between 100 and 1000 times safer than cigarettes.

Meanwhile, cigarettes are estimated to kill between one third and two thirds of all smokers.

Some anti-smokers argue that the electronic cigarette should be banned on the basis that it is not 100% safe. Anti-smoker Dr Mintz points out that he doesn't advise his patients to drink coffee, so why should he advise them to use electronic cigarettes?

We're not so arrogant as to make your choices for you. You know whether you can (or want to) quit, and whether you want to use an alternative.

So what's it going to be: tobacco cigarettes, or electronic cigarettes?