Puff the Electric Drag
The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man was a witty commentary on the effects of technology on popular culture by Canadian Professor Marshall McLuhan, published in 1951. The same theme has been echoed in other literary works such as The Love Machine, The Electric Horseman and A Clockwork Orange.
Today electronics and cybernetics dominate the culture far more than in 1951: we have e-mail, e-tickets, telecommuting, even "phone sex" (no substitute for the real thing, I kid you not!) According to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, today we also have "high-tech lynching."(1) When I was growing up in a northside Milwaukee tenement, you could see a real live mouse running about; now the only "mouse" you'll find in the typical home is connected to a computer.
So, perhaps it was inevitable that even the most visceral human activity known as smoking (that is, putting the smoke from burning leaves into your lungs, where it can do the most harm) is being challenged by an electronic substitute: the Smoking Everywhere Electronic Cigarette! (2) This gizmo is a steel tube, about the size of a real cigarette, containing a nicotine cartridge, an atomizer, a computer-chip controller and a lithium battery.
When the user puffs on the e-cig, a red light goes on at the other end and a smoke-like vapor is emitted while a nicotine-rich vapor enters the user's mouth. From more than a few feet away, the user appears to be smoking a real cigarette. The user gets the nicotine "hit" that he craves, but without the carbon monoxide, tars and other carcinogens that accompany tobacco smoke. The emitted vapor is odorless and harmless, and no ashes are produced.
The marketing materials for the e-cig claim that it can be used in places where smoking is prohibited, but I do not believe it. Allowing use of the e-cig in such places will give smokers the false impression that real smoking is also allowed, and will make enforcing no-smoking rules too difficult.
But will smokers concerned about their health accept the e-cig as a substitute? The product is too new to tell right now, but there is a real chance it will cut into the cigarette market, especially among hard-core nicotine addicts that have tried and failed to quit smoking altogether. If so, the product could have the salutary effect of reducing new cases of emphysema, lung cancer, and perhaps even heart disease. Nicotine is a powerful addictive drug, but it is far less harmful than many of the other chemicals ingested with cigarette smoke, such as hydrogen cyanide.
As someone who tried smoking (in 1959) and did not like it, I am glad I will never need the e-cigarette. But to those who are too hooked on nicotine to quit smoking anything, I say, "Go ahead and puff the new nicotine delivery device, but just don't inhale!"
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(1) A derisive term he used to describe the sexual harassment charges made against him during his 1991 confirmation hearings.
(2) See www.SmokingEverywhere.com for details.
Today electronics and cybernetics dominate the culture far more than in 1951: we have e-mail, e-tickets, telecommuting, even "phone sex" (no substitute for the real thing, I kid you not!) According to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, today we also have "high-tech lynching."(1) When I was growing up in a northside Milwaukee tenement, you could see a real live mouse running about; now the only "mouse" you'll find in the typical home is connected to a computer.
So, perhaps it was inevitable that even the most visceral human activity known as smoking (that is, putting the smoke from burning leaves into your lungs, where it can do the most harm) is being challenged by an electronic substitute: the Smoking Everywhere Electronic Cigarette! (2) This gizmo is a steel tube, about the size of a real cigarette, containing a nicotine cartridge, an atomizer, a computer-chip controller and a lithium battery.
When the user puffs on the e-cig, a red light goes on at the other end and a smoke-like vapor is emitted while a nicotine-rich vapor enters the user's mouth. From more than a few feet away, the user appears to be smoking a real cigarette. The user gets the nicotine "hit" that he craves, but without the carbon monoxide, tars and other carcinogens that accompany tobacco smoke. The emitted vapor is odorless and harmless, and no ashes are produced.
The marketing materials for the e-cig claim that it can be used in places where smoking is prohibited, but I do not believe it. Allowing use of the e-cig in such places will give smokers the false impression that real smoking is also allowed, and will make enforcing no-smoking rules too difficult.
But will smokers concerned about their health accept the e-cig as a substitute? The product is too new to tell right now, but there is a real chance it will cut into the cigarette market, especially among hard-core nicotine addicts that have tried and failed to quit smoking altogether. If so, the product could have the salutary effect of reducing new cases of emphysema, lung cancer, and perhaps even heart disease. Nicotine is a powerful addictive drug, but it is far less harmful than many of the other chemicals ingested with cigarette smoke, such as hydrogen cyanide.
As someone who tried smoking (in 1959) and did not like it, I am glad I will never need the e-cigarette. But to those who are too hooked on nicotine to quit smoking anything, I say, "Go ahead and puff the new nicotine delivery device, but just don't inhale!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) A derisive term he used to describe the sexual harassment charges made against him during his 1991 confirmation hearings.
(2) See www.SmokingEverywhere.com for details.
Labels: smoking
posted by Gerald S Glazer at 10:04 AM
1 Comments:
The Electronic Cigarette is really the only safe way to smoke.
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