The electric cigarette, sometimes called the e-cigarette or smokeless cigarette, is an innovative new device for a smoker that takes a lot of the risk and negative aspects of the habit out of the equation, while enjoying a long variety of liquid aroma. There are no carcinogens present in the vapor it produces, greatly reducing the common smoking risk for users. Although it seems like this way of smoking is very new, its beginnings actually stem back over a few decades.
It all started in 1963 when a man by the name of Herbert A. Gilbert came up with the initial concept for an electronic cigarette device. Gilbert even received patent number 3,200,819 on August 17, 1965 for his smokeless non-tobacco cigarette. He was also featured in the December issue of Popular Mechanics for it. Unfortunately he never saw his idea fully come to fruitarian.
In those days, smoking wasn’t seen as harmful as it is today – the evidence and research was just not there to substantiate such a claim. However, it was in 1963 that the first major anti-smoking campaign was released on the public by the government. Gilbert was wise enough to come up with the concept for the e-cig during this very year. If technology had been on his side, he may have very well been successful with his new invention back then.
Fast-forward into the year 2003 and Hon Lik, a Chinese pharmacist, develops a modern version of the electric cigarette. Today’s devices are derivatives of this very e-cig. Although Gilbert and Lik both had the same basic idea, their versions of the e-cig are completely different.
Hon Lik’s father was a heavy smoker and died from lung cancer due to the smoking. This motivated him to successfully develop an alternative version of smoking, a healthier version, to help other smokers prevent the same consequences.
Electronic cigarettes were exported and introduced to Europe in 2006 before coming to the United States in 2007. It compared other nicotine replacement products to the electric cigarette as a smoking cessation tool. The study concluded that e-cigarettes were effective for this purpose and worthy of further study.
The e-cig is gradually being refined and improved upon within the US and its growing popularity is something that cannot be ignored. More recently, the electronic cigarette has made its appearance in several prominent movies and is being enjoyed by thousands of former tobacco smokers worldwide.
