Wanna Be a Non-Smoker Smoker?

When I realized I could finish a 25g pack of Drum tobacco in just three days, I thought I deserved the title of "SuperSmoker". But it seems that title is being used for something else - something much more advanced and healthier too!

SuperSmoker is actually a cigarette look-alike which doesn't have any tobacco, doesn't light, doesn't burn, doesn't have tar or any cancerous substances, doesn't require ashtrays and doesn't pollute the environment (no CO² emitted). Compared to a standard cigarette with 40 over cancerous substances, it has zero.

So what does it do then?

It is an alternative cigarette that looks like the real thing, tastes like the real thing and even smokes like the real thing. The nicotine that you receive can be varied in terms of the strength you desire, as it uses a high-tech invention of evaporation and computer technology. Basically the nicotine 'shot' you get comes from a cartridge containing liquidized food that gets vaporized in a chamber. But to cover-up the mechanical functions taking place, SuperSmoker has a tobacco-like flavour and even emits tobacco-like aroma! This means no real smoke being emitted and no harmful passive smoking. It comes with replaceable filters and works electronically on batteries that need to be recharged from time to time.

If you buy SuperSmoker Ultimo, you get four test cartridges of varying strengths, along with the 'atomizer' (that is what they call the stick!), a lithium battery with a charger, a cable and a manual. It might sound like a lot of work but compared to rolling your own cigarettes it still beats the time taken.

Their site has a disclaimer that says:

SuperSmoker is not designed for smokers who want to quit.

What I'm thinking is, if you keep taking lower and lower strengths of cartridges, you could actually use it to quit smoking. Either way, if you're just hooked on to the nicotine and not 'smoking' any real smoke, you aren't a smoker any more. (Talk about breakthroughs!)

The most interesting thing I would like to try out in Singapore would be to visit clubs and public areas where smoking is banned and to take out my SuperSmoker. What a funny scene would it be when they try to fine me and they realize (after many arguments from me of course) that it's not a real cigarette and that they can't fine me. Haha!

Whatever the case, £79.00 (S$213.12) is not affordable for me right now, and the additional cartridges that cost £7.95 (S$21.45), which include 6 cartridges and 12 filters only, are also very expensive. The website promises 65% savings on our smoking budgets, which is possible if each cartridge lasts very long, but the "down payments" for these are quite high.

But what if the taste is very bad! What a waste of money would it be then - if I revert to smoking normal cigarettes later on?

If I quit smoking right now...

Just as the deadline got closer, I found a cheaper way to get cigarettes in Singapore.

Last new year's eve I promised myself that I would quit smoking this year (2007). I made a couple of attempts with varied successes but now the 'deadline' is drawing closer. 31st December is just a breath away, considering I have just 4 days left in Singapore before I go home, after which time will just fly. What's more, you can get cigarettes so cheap in Pakistan that it's nearly impossible to quit. Plus, you can buy loose cigarettes - so even if you are virtually penniless, you can still get a couple of cigarettes.

The discovery was made by my friend Don [not his real name] when he got his hands on Drum, a popular brand of fine-cut hand-rolling tobacco - or 'shag'. Don had been on student exchange to Europe where he discovered the bliss of shags and their low cost. Plus, the added joy of rolling cigarettes yourself was priceless.

When he arrived in Singapore, he was hit by the S$ 11.80 price of just one pack of cigarettes (thanks to "sin taxes" in Singapore). One packet of Drum costs S$ 12.90 plus 50 cents for 50 rolling papers. The packet itself can be used to make about 75 cigarettes - that is about 4 packs of regular cigarettes! The only issue is that you have to smoke without filters, which seems a little too hazardous for even the most eager smoker.

He searched and finally found Zig-Zags, a brand more commonly known as 'ziggies', available at a couple of news-stands in Holland Village. One packet of Zig-Zags filters costs just S$ 1.50 and has 150 filters - good to last for two packs of Drum! The discovery quickly made its way around many Pakistanis and many of them smoke Drum or Butterfly [another brand] now.

Why I started to discover the joy of rolling was primarily because I thought to myself, "I will need to put in so much work into making each cigarette, and with the added benefit of low cost, I am bound to reduce smoking."

Wrong.

I started smoking even more. From 10 cigarettes a day I went up to smoking 25 on average. Quitting smoking seems like a distant dream to me now.

But who knows what transformation awaits me upon arrival at my beloved city?

Quitting smoking is really hard, but with family around most of the time, it would definitely reduce my intake. That is certainly a healthy start, right?

I already know all there is to know about quitting, and if I am just in the right frame of mind, I just might do it before the 'deadline' - December 31, 2007.

Here's a graphic image I got from here about what would happen to my body if I quit smoking right now:


Random thought: I wondered why would they name a brand of tobacco "Drum"!? I guess Google Image Search gave me the answer - you can also buy a drum of Drum!

Quitters collect here...

I remember I got a random email in January this year. I had made an attempt to quit smoking around that time and I blogged about how I had quit. Apparently someone read that post and thought I had quit smoking successfully then when I really hadn't. So I was never able to answer the email. To be perfectly honest, I don't think I am currently in a position to advise on how to quit smoking, since my most successful attempt was also in vain. I intend to try to quit again (and I will never quit trying); till then, I will just share the email here.

Hey man,

You don't know me, and I dont know you. This is a fake email address, and that ain't my real name.

But I need your help. You quit smoking right. Its in that vein.

The guys I hang around with smoke, and till last semester, I was staunch against not smoking, but this sem, I dunno what happened, but I started, (half cos of the insanely cheap duty free cigs these guys had got). I thought that as long as I dont start buying packs, I wont start smoking 'proper'. Well, the duty free ones are over and I bought a pack today.

I cant even give a reason to why I started. Absolutely no explanation. Last week I decided that it was not worth it and that I wont smoke.

Apparently, that dint work, and 3 days later, I was smoking again. Today I bought a pack. Weekend, I smoked enough. (6 in a day is more than enough for me!)

I feel that Im getting hooked onto em, that too just for a few minutes of kick that the cigarette gives.

Fuck man, really, what do I do... Its tough being around these guys who smoke, my best friends.... but will power is something that's failed me, quite a few times now.

A month of smoking, i doubt its done any real harm to me yet, and I seriously dont wanna get hooked.. but I feel im getting hooked..

Please dude, if u can take some time out, and reply to this mail... ill be grateful..

Thanks a lot dude...

Marcos

P.S.: like i said, that aint my real name. This email isn't even how I type. Identity secrecy is a must.

Thinking...

I am somewhere in the middle of either deciding to stop buying more cigarettes or to quit. I have yet to make my final decision.

After all, I am able to quit during the day when I'm fasting. But the thing is, all day long I am looking forward to that smoke I have right after I open my fast. Hmmph...

The cigarette century

A new book argues that chemical waste causes cancer. - By Barron H. Lerner - Slate Magazine

Devra Davis wants chemical waste to become the new cigarette, an object that generates reflexive loathing from most Americans. And the pieces of the puzzle seem to be there: exposure-related cancers, decades of incriminating research, and cover-ups by the...

There you have it - something that is equally bad as cigarettes or smoking, yet no one chooses to look at it. These people who think they are 'enlightened' just because they think they know something smokers don't are not so enlightened after all. I mean, of course all smokers know smoking is bad for them. What sort of a comment is "Don't you know smoking is bad for you?"

Hello? A person who was born yesterday knows that. Here's some advice to all you people out there who think you're better than us just because you don't smoke:

Get a book on lung cancer. The odds that you get it are as high as any smoker getting it. Maybe even more.

Chimeral Desires

Wednesday night, in an attempt to reduce cost and amount smoked, I went half and half on a cigarette pack with a friend.

The result of having company while smoking: each of us smokers finished 10 cigarettes in two hours. (There are 20 in one pack.)

So far I haven't purchased any more cigarettes since then. I did, however, try to acquire cigarettes from friends around Sehri time, as the deadline to start fasting approached earlier in the morning today - but without any luck. I smoked Sheesha instead (which has almost zero percent nicotine).

Right now I am feeling more thirsty than I'm craving a smoke. Maybe I'll quit now?

To burn or not to burn

My previous attempt to quit smoking was quite successful (7.5 weeks!) until the time I got my hands on a carton of cigarettes - a generous gift from my sister. This is the fourth week since I started to smoke again.

Now, try as I might, I know that I can not blame my sister for this unsuccessful attempt. My self-control comes to be the culprit. After all, I did avoid smoking in spite of having a full carton under my nose for one whole week - until I smoked that 'fatal' cigarette. And then another. And another. And...

The holy month of Ramadan has arrived, which means I can't eat, drink or smoke from dawn till dusk everyday. In a way, it's like quitting smoking every day for a good number of hours (14).

On one hand I could use my belief in Islam and this holy month to help me try to quit smoking once again. But on the other hand what gets me through the day is the dream of smoking that one cigarette after Iftar or 'breaking fast' when the nicotine level in my blood is at its lowest.

So now I sit here in my room writing this at 2 am, when the deadline to eat, drink and smoke as much as I want approaches in a little more than two hours.

I am contemplating if I should go and burn another $11.60 to buy a pack or not.



And you know what, I think I'll buy just one more pack.

Damnit.