Meanwhile, I hope that you are still vaping and not smoking!  And that you are ready for the nicer weather that is finally starting to show up…  at least in my part of the world.  Cheers to my global audience and thanks for the continued support.

So now I get to test the suppliers delivery guarantee and see just how well that works.  And hopefully, I will find another option and be able to stock up again before I run out of supplies.  If you’re in Canada, you too will one day feel the same as I do today, but don’t lose hope.  Maybe one day – not too far in the future – we’ll see the e-cig being available right at the corner store.  Could happen!?

Vape-On!

Vape On!

I’ve been thinking about changing model of e-cig.  I am finding the E8 just a little light in battery life and cartridge life, but I’ve already commented on that.  So I had finally settles on a brand to try (epuffer.ca) and was going to take a look at the pricing and product options one more time only to find a note on their site that reads thus:

“Due to recent electronic cigarette nicotine regulation advisory from Health Canada, we will no longer process or ship new orders to Canadian address until market authorization is obtained from Health Canada.”

Damn!  So it looks like I’m going to stay with my China connection and continue to order my products direct from there.  And… it looks like the E9 will be my next model to try out.  I’m hopeful that the E9 will be a little more robust and provide for more enjoyment from a battery, but will most certainly also be ordering extra batteries to make sure that I always have a charged and ready battery on hand and at least a couple of cartridges.  I like their product and their shipping is so far reliable and fast, but I was hoping for something at least a little more domestic.

Meanwhile, I see a few more orders have come through on the links and I’m happy to report that I’ve converted a few other people in my area from analogs to e-cigs.  I wish every new ‘vaper’ well in their endeavour, and hope that they have the same kind of success I’ve had so far.  I know I’m not posting as often as some might like to see, but I really haven’t had a lot to say.  Once I order and receive my E9, I’ll have to write some comparative review and of course I’m likely to try a few more flavours just to see what all the fuss is about.

Happy Vaping everyone!

Heading on to Month #2!

First I’ll let you in on Glenn’s note.  It’s been 10 days and Blu Cigs are Terrible!  His words…  After waiting the better part of 7 weeks to get his product in hand, in less than 10 days he’s already got two (YES – Both!) batteries overheating.  So he’s hoping for a refund of his money from Blu and call that the end of the game for them.   I still don’t have a personal experience with Blu, and at this point in the game I’m not likely to.  I mean…  they failed to deliver…  They had to shutdown orders for most of July to catch up…  They just got around to sending an email telling me that my order to Canada can’t be shipped (a fact I’ve known for SEVERAL days now)…  and Glenn’s experience with them is not a good one.  There are a few more reasons which are actually part of my discussion coming up.  But I am quite sure that I won’t be restoring my affiliate links with Blu in the near future.  What Glenn DID like is his new KR808D (Vapor King).  And the reviews I’m reading on this little gem have me wondering if this is a solid choice for me as well… but more on that later.

I am actually Very happy with my E8 except for the battery life.  Frankly – the batteries (long or short) really suck!  In fact, I’m quite glad that I have the ability to charge my batteries in my car as I can have one charging in car while I’m touring around during the day, and the other is in the case in my pocket.  So I’m never that far away from a fully charged battery.  With that in mind, I am considering another spare batter – or perhaps moving to the slightly larger KR808D-1 (Vapor King) or perhaps the E9 from e-cig.com.

But here are a few tips that I’ve come to fine useful.  Of course these are based on MY likes, styles, use and experience – Your experience may differ in practice.

1. Learn the fine art of Primer Puffing.  It’s quite necessary in my experience.  I find that the vapor cloud from a fresh battery and fresh cartridge are pretty good, but with a little primer puff the second mouthful is stunning.  My little E8 does an amazing job of replicating a smoke – except for the black coloring and lack of all the killer chemicals in the ‘smoke’.

2. I LIKE Disposable Atomizers – When I first heard about these I had actually considered them wasteful.  But there are a couple of large advantages to these!  First – the ability to change flavour mid-cartridge!  Want some menthol – pull the cart – bolt it onto your battery and enjoy menthol.  No atomizer to clean or smoke off the remainder only to have to do it all over again when ou switch back.  Of course – you could have multiple batteries – but the Cartomizer concept is certainly easier.  Then – and this is a key part to me – I don’t have to worry about my atomizer quitting mid cartridge with no spare on hand.  Or having a spare that turns out to be a dud.  Replacements could be WEEKS away, and I’d be forced back to Analogs for the duration.

3. e-Cigs ARE effective.  Here I am – nearly a week into my personal experiment, and I am handed a LIT Cigarette to hold while my friend has to go inside for a couple minutes.  I took two puffs of my E8 and handed back the cigarette to my friend with not so much as a sniff of the smoke.  It was impressive how easy that was!

4. There are – and will be – 100 businesses or more popping up offering an e-cig solution online.  Be wary!  Many of these come from the same company.  Look at the specs.  Look at the price and look at the offerings.  Big money will have a wider range of product and selection, while those with shallower pockets at startup with have fewer models and flavours to choose from.  Be mindful of the smaller sites – they run the greatest risks of being out of product and delaying shipment.  Look for a website that SHOWS their on-hand quantity.  Then act fast!

5. STOCK UP!  With the FDA, Health Canada, and other organizations setting the sights on e-cig controls and shipments, you may find yourself with product with no notice.  So I’m planning to stock up for a while so I can continue to enjoy the product of my choosing for at least a month or so at a time.

6. Try the flavours!  I like the e-cig.com cherry cartridges in my E8.  As well as the Flu Cured, and Menthol.  With the different strengths of nicotine, I’m finding that the strong or full-bodied variety are my preference.

Well… if I write anymore tonight I won’t have anything to add for another week!  So for now I’ll just pull a couple more puffs off of my E8 and head to bed.  Tomorrow is a full day!

G’night!

http://cagecanada.blogspot.com/2009/05/e-cigarettes-letter-to-health-canada.html

Also, be sure to read the follow-up correspondence found here:

http://cagecanada.blogspot.com/2009/07/correspondence-with-health-canada-on-e.html

njw

Get on board to save e-cigs and more!

Meanwhile, I wanted to share a discovery with you.  As I have shopped, read, browsed, called, emailed and read some more across a wide range of sites and countries, I’ve come to an interesting realization.  There are really only a few companies that are actually making e-cigs and their supplies.  Whether bottles or cartridges, there are only a couple of different formulas (so far) that are available in large quantity to even come close to meeting the growing demand.  I see a number of the larger sites also offering affiliate programs that are of course designed to encourage faster growth and to ‘share’ the wealth a little bit at a time, while increasing volume so that in the end, the companies are able to reach more clients and take more orders and increase their bottom line profits.  But I have to ask this – Why would I want to invest thousands – even tens of thousands of US dollars into a business that has a high risk of failure due to the incredible competition that is showing up already?  Why would I want to risk it all for customs issues and customer complaints?  When I can get a small piece of the action without any risk at all.  And I mean NO risk!

I’ve already eared a few dollars as an affiliate to just one company.  And all I have to do is bring traffic to a link and when they click on that link, when they order, I earn.  Simple.  No inventory.  No shipping.  No Customer Service.  None of the headaches.  I just wait to see how many successful orders are placed and filled and collect my monthly payment.  And in truth…  if it covers a little of my actual costs related to e-cigs, then I’m a happy guy. 

Sure… we are all tempted by the impression that this will become a MASSIVE market and will claim billions in revenues, and we all want our little share of that.  I know I do!  But what I really want is the ability to help others to make a choice that will, in at least one way, increase their chances of surviving a terrible addiction.  It’s been said many times that nicotine addiction is perhaps the hardest to break, and there are many reports that claim that all of the stop-smoking techniques out there suffer a staggering 98% or higher long-term failure rate!

So I’ve been blogging on this whole e-cig thing for a solid month and have learned a ton.  Along the way, I’ve shared some of that knowledge with you, and some of you have responded.  It’s been interesting, frustrating and maybe even a little therapeutic at times.  So I wanted to toss a few words here for now to let you know that I am looking back on the first month as a success and will most certainly be working forward in the hopes that I will actually have more to talk about on this subject in the next few days.  Maybe even be able to tell the world that I’m actually using an e-cig soon!

And of course, I will be posting on the state of the market as the FDA, Health Canada and other government agencies work to put a strangle hold on these products.

But for now… it’s off to my last smoke of the night (outside!) and then off to bed.  So I wish you a good night and promise – I’ll be back!

Cheers

njw

Now… the question that remains is;  will I receive my other order?  Or will the Government that feels that Tobacco is safer force me to be unable to receive ANY e-cig product?  I see SOOO much potential for improvement in my life and health and overall well being by changing from tobacco to e-cigs, and am being told that I can’t.  Starting to smoke was my choice – EVEN WHEN WE WERE BEING TOLD IT WAS DEADLY!  So why are these any different?  Come on Health Canada!  If you want to see Product Safety sheets and such, I can send you to the links – just drop me a line and I’ll be glad to share.

Meanwhile… I’m hoping for some good news soon.  Fingers crossed… as they’ve been for four weeks!

njw

So let’s talk about this for a few minutes… Specific to Health Canada’s recent warning:

First on the list – e-cigs don’t vaporize tobacco.  They create a vapour of liquid nicotine, propylene glycol and other flavour ingredients.  You can’t publish a warning to anyone that carries any meaning if you don’t have the facts right to start with.

Next – and I’ll run into some people that won’t like this one for sure – I KNOW the risks.  You’ve spent a fortune proving that smoking IS killing me.  Now along comes a product that offers me the choice to stop smoking tobacco products and switch to inhaling a mist of specific ingredients that, on their own, are PROVEN to be magnitudes safer than the products that I inhale from a cigarette, yet you tell me that it may carry some unknown risks.  OF COURSE IT DOES!  But I know for certain that MIGHT is far better than WILL when it comes to something causing me health problems, and eventually DEATH!

I actually laughed at the part in the Health Canada warning that advised that e-cigarettes ’may pose risks such as nicotine poisoning and addiction’.  OF COURSE THEY WILL!  And if someone I know that is a non-smoker picks up an e-cig, I’ll smack them!  Nicotine Addiction is one of the main reasons that I still smoke.  And all of the ‘approved’ methods to cure me of that have failed!  And as for nicotine poisoning, have you ever swallowed a piece of nicotine gum!?  Swallowing a 4 mg Nicorette gum during a flight a few years ago caused me to be ill for 3 of the 6 days that I was visiting with my family.  Not at all a pleasant experience, and I’m quite sure that would qualify as a low grade nicotine poisoning.  To get the same level of nicotine into my system from an e-cig, I’d have to tear open the cartridge and start drinking the juice.  Not something I’m ever likely to do by accident.

Here’s another fact for you regarding nicotine replacement products.  Look at the recommended dosage for a pack a day plus smoker starting their programs. 

• Nicorette Gum – up to 15 per day at 4mg per gum.  Total daily dose is 60mg.
• Nicorette Lozenge – 8 or more per day for a minimum dosage of 32mg.
• Nicorette Inhaler – up to 12 cartridges per day!   I don’t have the dosage information for this one.

Now…  compare those to an e-cig:

Even at full strength, an e-cig cartridge contains 16 mg of nicotine, and is rated to last as long as 12 to 15 normal tobacco cigarettes.  So…  if you smoke a pack a day (20 cigarettes) the total MAXIMUM dosage of nicotine is below 30mg per day.  Seems that less is a good thing, even if just a little less. 

Now I’m the first to admit that there are indeed a number of unknowns here.  And I recognize that the folks at Health Canada have to at least warn us of the risk, but what I end up seeing is a failing model of ‘concern for the public health’ where a product that is tested and PROVEN deadly is still permitted to be sold on the market to the millions of people that are already addicts.  Let’s look at the past efforts of this mandate:

• HC have forced laws requiring warnings on the packages – INEFFECTIVE!
• HC have spent huge money on advertising to increase knowledge – YUP…  WE KNOW SMOKING KILLS
• HC have tested and re-tested tobacco products for decades – BUT STILL WE CAN BUY THEM!
• HC have most recently forced stores to ‘hide’ tobacco products – WE STILL KNOW THEY ARE THERE!

I could go on…  and on…  sure, they’re getting the message out there, but is it REALLY doing any good?  Are my tax dollars doing something really useful or just helping to pay for the health care costs related to all of us that continue to die slowly while inhaling killer products that are KNOWN to be killer products?

So I would like to invite all of these government agencies to do something REALLY useful with all of our money.  Come up with a program and TEST E-CIGS.  Prove them safer than tobacco and perhaps even get us making them here in Canada.  Get the tobacco companies involved.  Create jobs – or at least minimize the impact of a change in tobacco sales on the workforce.  Sure… tax my e-cigs.  There – I said it!  Yes I would be willing to pay a 20 to 30% tax on my e-cig products if it were proven they were safer and they had a solid obligation to uphold certain health and safety standards that may not currently be enforced in China.  Of course this is also based on the fact that current e-cig products are 70% or more CHEAPER than tobacco cigarettes.  If they were made here, sure I’d pay more, but in the long run, I would hope that the end cost for a ‘pack’ of e-cigs would be lower by at LEAST 50% than tobacco products.

Then give me the CHOICE to have a safer, cleaner, endorsed product that I can still use to actually ENJOY my nicotine addition, without the costly, deadly, and smelly side effects.

I know I’m speaking to a small audience here, but hey…  I still need to express my opinion and hope that at least one other person reads and agrees with what I’m saying here.  Who knows…  maybe someone up at Health Canada may read this and start a new train of though on this topic.  Could happen!

Regardless of all of this, as long as I can find a supplier, I will order, and use, an e-cig product!  Of that I am certain – because even if there are risks to my health in doing so – I am 100% certain that it will be a smaller risk than I face today as a tobacco smoker.  And there ARE studies right here in Canada that are starting to say the same thing.

So Vape On my friends… and tell everyone to keep the pressure on Health Canada, WHO, US FDA and anyone else that tries to prevent us from making the choice to lower our risk factors.

Cheers!

njw