They are made of metal, battery-powered, and tend to look like tobacco cigarettes, with LED lights simulating a lit cherry. They can be bought at convenience stores and gas stations, and are even disposable, a single one approximating a pack of smokes. Inside a wire coil heats nicotine-infused water until it's vaporized and can be inhaled into the mouth of the user. The nicotine is delivered and the vaper blows out a plume of water vapor that further simulates smoking.
Gonzales resident Koly McBride, co-owner of Paper Wing Theatre, uses e-cigs. She says she smoked tobacco cigarettes for 15 years, quit when she got pregnant, but started up again when her kids were older. She tried quitting using the gum, but being around smokers at the theater made her worried she would cave to the temptation.
'I noticed these e-cigarettes on the market and it's saved me,' she says.
She says she first tried it while flying because she couldn't smoke cigarettes.
'I can pull it out anywhere and 'smoke,'' she says. 'Like at the airport. I do it pretty discreetly. If I'm stuck on the other side of TSA, I'll pull it out, instead of walking out of the terminal and going through TSA again. I've 'smoked' it at Disneyland, at local bars, and nobody's said anything.'
No flame, no ash, no stench, no second-hand smoke, no broken laws, all at a bit more cost than a pack of smokes. But convenience comes with its own issues.
'Cigarettes you put out, but this, you hit it, hit it, hit it,' she says. 'I don't like that you can overdose. When I vape too much, my anxiety goes up a little bit. Too much nicotine.'
That's one of the gambles of a new, under-studied and under-regulated product that many are willing to take. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration conducted tests in 2009 and among their summary of preliminary findings was this: 'Three different electronic cigarette cartridges with the same label were tested and each cartridge emitted a markedly different amount of nicotine with each puff' and 'quality control processes used to manufacture these products are inconsistent or non-existent.'
McBride feels vaping is more like diverting the addiction, and testimonials appear all over the Internet about how e-cigs ended decades of addiction to smoking cigarettes. But it probably didn't help their reputation that early TV ad campaigns were awkward, featuring an aggressive, existential rant by actor Stephen Dorf, or a cheap infomercial that blurts 'Now you can smoke in your office!' Because they don't contain tobacco, they aren't regulated domestically by the FDA, though it's coming. The FDA did crack down on international imports - Asia is a big producer - of e-cigs and gear, which might have helped kick-start U.S. manufacturing.
E-cigarettes are growing as viable alternatives to the real thing. Vape mods, however, are a thing unto themselves.
Montez dismantles one of his mods to demonstrate the DIY method of refilling the device with proprietary vapor juice Nic Coury
A vape mod is a customizable, refillable type of vaporizer device. The liquid that is vaped, or vaporized, is called 'juice' and it starts with a base of vegetable glycerin or propylene glycol (colorless, viscous fluid used in food products and pharmaceuticals). Water and various amounts of nicotine and flavors are added. That juice is loaded into a battery-powered personal vaporizer (PV), or mod (short for 'modular'). And you're ready to start vaping. Connoisseurs and hobbyists prefer vaping with mods because the juice can be made of special blends, the atomizer and battery can be changed to affect the vapor produced, and, honestly, they look cooler. They can look like robotic spark plugs, a piccolo, an apple, a fancy pen, an airbrush gun. There are steampunk versions, embossed metal engraved versions and colorful, light-up styles.
Vapers across the U.S. (and various countries) gather at vape meets, which can be as humble as convening in a parking lot to renting small conference centers with tables and merch. There's been a charity vape meet for Typhoon Haiyan relief. It's a surprising subculture.
'I think I'm a little old for that,' McBride says. 'I don't even know what you mean. In the NorCal smoke shop [in New Monterey], people were talking about flavors. I wouldn't know anything about that.'
Esteban 'Steb' Montez would. He's a former rapper, local music producer and DJ who says he smoked from age 14 to 34, putting away up to a pack a day.
Montez says cigarettes just fit into his nightlife and music lifestyle: the action, the work breaks, the coffee, the ceremony, the oral fixation, the social aspect. He dabbled with vaporizers at first in an effort to preserve his health and stamina, but when he found out he was going to have a baby, he cut out cigarettes almost entirely in favor of vaping.
He used to have to order cartridges from China and wait two weeks for delivery. Now there are several smoke shops that sell gear within reach, with a couple high-end spots in Santa Cruz and even a 'vape bar' in San Jose.
'Before I was copying and pasting Chinese into the website,' he says. 'Now, over the last year and a half it's blown up... in Los Angeles you can't throw a shoe without hitting a vape and juice bar.'
Different configurations of the battery, the juice, the cartridge (which holds the juice), atomizer (which vaporizes the juice) and mouthpieces can alter the vaping experience, the way it feels in the vaper's throat (called the 'throat hit'), the intensity of the flavor and nicotine, the richness of the vapor. A starter kit can be had for $29; more advanced customizations reach into the hundreds of dollars. There are websites to feed the growing demand, and brands are popping up like mushrooms - Bloog, Volt, Silver Bullet, eGo, Vape Lyfe, VapeOn.tv, Lush Vapor, NicQuid, Omega, Bamskilicious E-Juice, Blu - with a flashy array of packaging, logos, Internet and multimedia presence. Endless online forums, tutorials and testimonials beckon.
That glut comes with a risk.
'That there are more than 200 brands containing varying levels of nicotine and other substances only makes it harder to assess their safety,' the editors of Bloomberg write of the $1.8 billion worldwide e-cigarette industry.
There are custom juices with little or no nicotine (or so they say). They come in a fractured rainbow of flavors: combos of fruits like strawberry, kiwi or watermelon, Gummi Bear, banana nut bread, blue cotton candy, tobacco, menthol, tiramisu. It gets more evocative with Girl Scout Cookie, Yellow Submarine, Cinnamon Fireball, Monkey Jaw, Tiger's Blood.
Last year saw a two-day Electronic Cigarette Expo take place in Anaheim, which organizers say drew 15,000 people. A one-and-a-half-hour video walkthrough on YouTube revealed what looked like a legitimate trade show, lined with vendors hawking product and talking shop, comparing the vibe to vape meets; conventioneers puffing on vaporizers, white plumes billowing into frame.
Juices are subject to the peer review of the Internet, which can be a dicey proposition. There are testimonials about how vaping has saved people from the damage of smoking tobacco - the lesser of two evils, one online commenter concedes. And there is an amount of faith at work.
'There's probably trace amounts of chemicals,' Montez says. 'But it's probably so small it's like going out [for a walk] in the city. It's probably not great for you, but it's definitely not killing you like cigarettes.'
Celebrities are giving vapes a high profile. Johnny Depp smoked one on a train in the movie The Tourist, opposite Angelina Jolie. Actress Katherine Heigl turned David Letterman on to vaping on his show, after admitting Chantix had 'worked' (for more on Chantix, see sidebar, this page). Letterman, who smoked cigars for years until bypass surgery, quipped, 'That's why you had to try it twice.'
After Letterman takes a few drags from Heigl's 'Smoke Stick,' he says, 'That is fantastic.'
On another popular TV show, The Doctors, one of the several hosts, dressed in ER scrubs, says emphatically, 'It gives you nicotine but it doesn't give you any of the 4,000 chemicals that can cause cancer, among other problems.'
The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Thom Frieden, is suspicious that e-cigs and vapes are acting as a gateway to cigarettes. Heartland.org reported that one of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's last bans on his way out was a city ordinance to restrict vaping in the same manner as smoking because the health risks are not yet known.
'People are constantly misinformed,' Montez says. Not for long.
'Professional chefs are doing extracts in their homes, using USDA products. There are organic makers, too.' -Montez Nic Coury
E-cigarette-forum.com, a smoking alternative advocacy group, is promoting a 2013 study by Igor Burstyn, a PhD with of the School of Public Health at Drexel University, as the most definitive study yet: 'In summary, there is no evidence that vaping produces inhalable exposures to contaminants that would warrant health concerns by the standards that are used to ensure safety of workplaces. However, the aerosol generated during vaping as a whole (contaminants plus declared ingredients), if it were an emission from industrial process, creates personal exposures that would justify surveillance of health among exposed persons. Effects on bystanders are likely to be orders of magnitude less, and thus pose no apparent concern.'
But there are other hurdles. It's been reported that custom mods are subject to shortages or even explosions when being recharged. The Centers for Disease Control reported that almost 2 million high school and middle school kids tried e-cigarettes last year, a prospect that could rally support for restrictions or bans, like many states and municipalities have already done, reports Time Magazine. E-cig and vaping industry members are lobbying Congress to stave off FDA regulation, which TheHill.com suggests could 'snuff out' their fledgling enterprises (big tobacco is hedging their bet, simultaneously pushing for them to be regulated and buying up e-cig companies). Senate Bill 648 would have done that, but last August the hearing was pushed to sometime in January.
One ad excoriates readers to 'Stop Smoking; Start Vaping,' listing the money savings and health benefits to quitting cigarettes. Opposition is as compelling.
HealthDay.com reports that the CDC study found that use of e-cigs by high school students climbed from 4.7 percent in 2011 to 10 percent in 2012. The fear is teens, in particular, attracted to the fruity flavors, are getting addicted to nicotine when they're still developing, and seeing smoking as normal because of vaping.
The Wichita Business Journal website reported, 'The federal Food and Drug Administration is expected to issue proposed rules any day now on electronic cigarettes, which have been in a policy gray area.'
People are taking sides for what looks to be an escalating battle over the future of electronic cigarettes. But at Cannery Row's Blue Fin, on a Saturday night two weeks ago, for the two young dudes who were puffing on their mods at the vape vendor inside the nightclub, surrounded by people shooting pool and chatting over drinks, that seemed a world away. They puffed on, plumes of odorless clouds issuing from their mouths and evaporating in the air.
