By Jacqueline Palochko, Of The Morning Call 12:27 a.m. EST, November 29, 2013George Blandford was smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day and trying everything possible to stop.
After 15 years of smoking, he tried the nicotine patch, the nicotine gum and even going cold turkey.
Nothing helped.
Then he found electronic-cigarettes, a metal or plastic battery-powered device with a mix of nicotine and some kind of flavoring. Similar in size, he used it as he would while smoking a cigarette, while reading a newspaper or having his morning coffee.
It looked and felt like smoking a cigarette, without the cancer-causing tobacco.
Five years later, Blandford is cigarette-free and trying to get other smokers to quit the same way he did with his new store, Lehigh Vapor, in Bethlehem. It’s part of a growing trend of more people, including teenagers, using the battery-powered device in place of cigarettes.
Blandford and other users say it’s safer than smoking cigarettes. No tobacco. No threat of second-hand smoke. No smoke that can seep into homes, cars and clothes.
But doctors are leery about the devices that have only been around for 10 or 15 years and do contain nicotine, which is addictive.
“We don’t know that much about e-cigarettes,” said Dr. Bruce MacLeod, president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society. “And look at all those years with cigarettes when we were told they were safe.”
The Pennsylvania Medical Society is asking the state to regulate e-cigarettes the same way it handles other tobacco products, including by taxation and banning sales to those under 18 years old. It also wants schools to include talks about e-cigarettes in tobacco education.
Blandford opened his shop in September to give smokers a way out, he said. He knew first-hand just how difficult it was to quit smoking, but for him, this method worked.
“It seemed foolish not to open one,” he said, puffing on an e-cigarette in his store that left a small cloud of smoke quickly vaporing.
Most people come into Lehigh Vapor looking for an alternative to smoking, Blandford said.
Alysha Allen of Bethlehem started smoking at 18, and although she said she was just a social smoker — maybe a pack of cigarettes a week — by 23 years old, she could hear her voice turning raspy. She recently switched to e-cigarettes and said she no longer coughs or wheezes and isn’t in pain when she gives a hearty laugh.
“I certainly feel a lot better,” she said.
For some smokers, it’s the cost of e-cigarettes that’s appealing. Greg Winnick of Wind Gap smoked for 15 years and was spending about $11 a day on cigarettes when he decided to look for a less expensive alternative. Two years ago, he discovered e-cigarettes and hasn’t smoked a cigarette since.
Now, he said, he spends probably $1 a day for e-cigarettes. Devices at Lehigh Vapor range in price from $15 to $150, and, similar to how a hookah works, users can put in a flavor of their liking. Flavors at Lehigh Vapor include banana, berry, cherry, orange, raspberry and more.
MacLeod, of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, said he has heard that e-cigarettes have helped people quit smoking, and admits e-cigarettes are most likely not as dangerous because there’s no tobacco.
“I’d characterize it as less bad,” he said.
But until more research is done, it’s best to treat e-cigarettes like tobacco-filled cigarettes, MacLeod said.
E-cigarettes: A solution to addictive smoking?
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