I've Given Up Smoking!

ALMOST TWO WEEKS AGO I bought a nicotine pipe (not an e-cigarette) and have gone days without smoking any cigarettes at all.

The type I got takes refills from a bottle. A 10ml bottle of 24mg/ml nicotine solution costs £3 and lasts me six days. Ie I'm "vaping" 40mg a day, which is about the amount of nicotine in 40 full-strength Marlboros.

I have tried e-cigarettes, but they (1) aren't strong enough: the strongest I've seen were only 18mg and more importantly (2) they don't give out nearly enough vapour. Lastly (3) they are far too expensive.

I don't reckon you'd save very much money at all smoking e-cigarettes with their poxy cartridges. Last time I tried smoking one, I'd exhausted the entire disposable cigarette with half an hour's constant puffing. I would never puff for half an hour on my wizzy new pipe, because you don't need to vape on it for that long. In fact, I'd say I spend a lot less time vaping than I used to smoking, because if anything my pipe is stronger than real cigarettes. Also with a cigarette constantly smouldering down you kind of feel duty-bound to finish it, hence taking more puffs than you otherwise might do, purely to get your money's worth. With a pipe I take between three and ten puffs, then that's it. The other difference is that I tended to blow cigarette smoke straight out, whereas with this thing I take double and treble puffs and really hold it in.

For years doctors have been telling us that most of the dangers of smoking come from the tar, and that someone, somewhere might be preposterous enough to do that. I'm sure that someone, somewhere has experimented with nicotine patches just for the hell of it, got addicted to nicotine that way and gone on to smoke ordinary fags. But does that mean nicotine patches ought to be banned?

nicotine is relatively benign. But at last that an efficient nicotine-delivery system has been developed that does not require smoking, a load of mean-spirited physicians are up in arms about it, making ludicrous claims that children might take up vaping and switch to smoking! How extremely ridiculous is that! Now I'm not denying that

I know there are health risks associated with nicotine, but they are far far smaller than those associated with tobacco smoking. Tobacco smoke contains over 7000 chemicals, of which at least 1200 are said to be toxic. Some, such as benzene and arsenic are extremely carcinogenic. Though as we know, human beings appear to be selectively susceptible to these harms. Some die off early. Others have been able to smoke daily for eighty years or more with no apparent ill-effects.

Another great advantage of vaping over smoking is the vastly reduced fire hazard. There is no more need for lighters, ashtrays. My house no longer reeks of fags.

Plus my teeth are whitening by the day.

I didn't even know how badly I wanted to pack in smoking until a viable alternative was available to me.

I'M REALLY GLAD I STOPPED.

Illustrated: Shisha Time vaping pipe, like the one I use... "Tobacco-flavour" e-liquid tastes of stale hamster-wee so I use lemon-flavour instead... The next one I'm gonna try will be mint... Nice white teeth (mine aren't that white) (also, when I wear lippy, I far prefer "plum paradise" to that rather bland shade...