This film is going to give you some practical tips and some facts
to help you get the most out of switching from tobacco to e-cigarettes.
I spoke to Sam.
He made the switch from smoking to vaping and has some great experience to share.
Well, I started smoking when I was about 15 or 16
and I was smoking pretty heavily for about 10 or 12 years
until I heard about vaping and I've been just vaping for probably the past two years now.
E-cigarettes all have some things in common:
they all contain a battery,
an atomiser that turns the e-liquid into vapour,
and, of course, the e-liquid itself.
The first and probably the most popular, at least a few years ago, were the cigalike devices.
As you can see some of these look very much like your standard cigarette
thus the name – cigalike.
this device is perhaps what springs to mind when you think of an electronic cigarette.
I've given these ago before – I didn't particularly get on with them very well.
It's the fact you've got to draw on them really hard and it doesn't really taste like anything
and it doesn't doesn't give you much of a kind of nicotine hit at all.
Many smokers start on these cigalike devices – they're easy to use,
they're familiar to people because they look like cigarettes
and you even vape on them in a similar way.
The downside of the cigalike devices is that
they don't produce much vapour
or give you as much nicotine as you typically would have got from your cigarette smoke.
So, then I progressed on to one of these
which is a slightly more advanced, but still quite a basic, e-cigarette.
And this gives you the option of changing the voltage
so that you can kind of increase the heat of the vapour that you're inhaling
and, to some extent, the strength of it.
So, this is the little tank on top that you'd fill up with your e-liquid
and it has a couple of wicks that just draw the liquid onto a heating element inside here
and obviously you've got your battery on the bottom
that heats up these little wires inside that then vaporise the liquid.
And by turning this dial on the bottom
you can essentially change the amount of power going through that coil
and increase the heat of the vapour.
When you're using these it's quite a similar smoking action to a cigarette
you do a little breath into your mouth and then chase it down into your lungs
but you'll find you have to do it for quite a long time
to get a similar effect of smoking a cigarette
and that can be quite frustrating at first.
It still didn't quite give me the hit that I needed to get off of smoking rollies.
You may see reference to sub-ohm or sub-ohming.
This is where the resistance in the coil is less than 1 ohm.
With a sub-ohm device you're going to need a bigger, more powerful battery
but the advantages perhaps of using a sub-ohm device is that you generate more vapour
which for some people is important.
So, this is the one that finally got me off smoking cigarettes basically.
So, I had to go on a friend's that was the same style of tank
and it just it gave you that proper hit.
It's just a battery at the bottom and tank on the top
and they're both just a little bit larger
which means that the battery can last for a lot longer
but also that it can put out a lot more power.
So, with this one you can adjust the wattage that flows through the atomiser
and that can change the temperature of the vapour that it produces
and also the amount of vapour that it produces.
What sort of maintenance is needed? What do you need to do buy to keep it going?
So they're quite simple to maintain really.
You just unscrew it like this and put the battery to one side.
And the main bit of maintenance you'll have to do is replacing the atomiser inside.
How do you know when you need to change the atomiser?
After a while it will start to develop a sort of a burnt cotton wool taste
– it's really noticeable.
Probably have to replace them about once a week, more or less.
You can just unscrew the bottom of the tank
and then the atomiser just unscrews from there
then you can buy packs of new ones
that cost about two pound each
and you just screw another one in and then you can start vaping again.
Different electronic cigarettes use slightly different atomisers
these are usually brand specific
so do make sure you read the instructions when you buy your product.
And in terms of maintenance of the tank – is there anything special you need to do for that?
It's really easy to take these apart to maintain them.
You just unscrew the tank from the battery,
the tank breaks down into three different bits:
you've got a little mouthpiece that pops out there,
and then you can unscrew the base of the tank,
and this has the atomiser in it.
So that can unscrew from there.
and then these two parts can just be rinsed under a tap
to help clean them out because you do get a little bit of residue that builds up in the middle of it.
And what you can do to clean that out is just take a little bit of tissue
and just clean down the inside there.
You'll probably want to do this once every day or two
depending on how much you're using it.
And you can just screw those back together and connect them back up.
This is just a rechargeable battery,
it charges up with the USB cable – really straightforward.
I usually just charge up overnight and it's ready to go for the whole next day.
You may have heard about e-cigarettes exploding.
This is rare and is typically in devices that have been modified at home
or that are unregulated.
When you go to buy your electronic cigarettes make sure you buy these from reputable dealers.
You should care for your electronic cigarette much like you do with your other electronic devices
– like your mobile phone.
For example, make sure you use the appropriate charger.
Is vaping different than smoking – in terms of how you puff on these things?
It is different. The process of inhalation is different from smoking
– you have to do a lot of a deeper draw. That can take a little bit of getting used to.
But I think that's part of the appeal for it and part of what made it easier to switch
is that you are doing a different process and it's a different habit that you're taking up.
Going back to the cigalikes – they were too similar but not quite good enough
and didn't quite do the job.
I had to learn a bit how to do it
because, obviously at first, if you try and smoke this like a cigarette
it will be really hot in the back of your mouth and not be that nice at all.
The other thing you find is that people try this
and they'll think that it's a lot harsher than smoking cigarettes
and it can be at first, but once you learn how to inhale it properly
and just become slightly more accustomed to it
it's actually a lot smoother.
It takes a little bit of practice to get used to.
With a lot of these devices you need to sometimes do what's known as a primer puff
if you haven't been using it for a while you just need to warm the coil up
just to get it up to optimum efficiency.
And so, you can either just hold the button down till you hear a little click
or just have a little warm-up and then you can do a full inhale.
I tend to use this a bit more frequently than I was smoking rollies
say you have a rollie every hour or so
whereas with this you can just take a few puffs every 20 minutes
and you keep your nicotine levels at much more of a constant
than the up-and-down of when you're smoking cigarettes.
The liquids that you use in your electronic cigarettes are often termed e-juice or e-liquid.
They all vary by the amount or concentration of nicotine,
the flavour,
and the ratio of propylene glycol to vegetable glycerin.
Many people try different flavours until they find one that they like.
This is also similar with nicotine concentration.
I just want to make a small point about nicotine.
A lot of people worry – they might have heard that nicotine causes cancer, for example.
It doesn't.
Nicotine is the relatively safe component of tobacco smoke
and with electronic cigarettes you're getting the nicotine
but without all the harmful chemicals that you get in tobacco smoke.
The mix of propylene glycol to vegetable glycerin is also important:
the propylene glycol gives you that scratchiness or the hit in the back of your throat.
The vegetable glycerin produces more vapour.
You'll need to try some different strengths and flavours
until you find the one that you like.
Sam, can you tell me a little bit about the e-liquid you use?
When I first started I decided to use a really high strength liquid
just to get me fully off of the rollies –overload myself with nicotine
but only for about a week and then work down:
18, 12 and now I'm on 6 milligrams – which works for me.
Are flavours important?
There are a lot of different e-liquid flavours out there
and it can take you a little while to find one that you actually like and want to use
and you'll probably find that you'll just stick with the same flavour for quite a long period of time.
So, at the moment I've just got tobacco and nuts
which is nice because it's quite a sort of savoury taste
and I'm not a big fan of the more sweet, kind of desserty flavoured ones.
The thing is you can just buy little bottles like this
so if you try a flavour and you don't like it
it's not that you've wasted a huge amount of money
and you've got loads that you then have to use up.
It's a lot, lot cheaper than smoking, for sure.
Sam, there may be some places where you just don't want to produce
as much vapour as you would in other situations.
How do you go about that?
So, one of the obvious things about these devices is that you produce massive clouds of vapour.
Which is quite fun a lot of the time but, obviously, there's certain situations where it's not really appropriate
you know, if you're in a public space or in someone else's house, for instance.
If you don't want to produce massive clouds of vapour you can either just take little puffs on it,
or you can just hold it in for a bit longer and the vapour just dissipates
and you're only breathing out a tiny little little cloud.
Sam, if I can ask you if you had any advice
for someone that's thinking about switching from smoking to vaping
– what would your advice be?
Don't give up on it straight away because it is a lot different from smoking
and it takes a while to get used to.
So, you might find that you have to try different strengths of nicotine.
It might take a while to find a flavour that you enjoy.
Just experiment.
One of the key messages I'd like you to take away from this film
is that there are a range of different electronic cigarettes
and a range of different e-liquids.
You're probably going to have to try a number of products
until you find the one that's right for you.