The Incredible Cigarette* That Doesn't Cause Cancer** Is Changing The World

In the past decade, big tobacco has finally developed and marketed a cigarette* that does not cause cancer**.

It's the closest we've come to a cancer-free cigarette, which tobacco companies have been fantasizing about since the 1950s.

But there are a few catches.

 *First, they are arguably not even cigarettes, without the tobacco content or taste that the 1.1 billion global smokers enjoy. That's the primary reason why e-cigarettes still represent only a tiny share of the market.

**Second, while e-cigarettes probably won't give you cancer, they may still contribute to heart disease, heart attack, stroke, and other ailments. Ultimately we know very little about the health effects — and given the history of cigarettes, that should worry you.

Cancer-free?

People smoke e-cigarettes to get a nicotine high, similar to the kind one gets with traditional cigarettes.

While the nicotine in e-cigarettes comes from the tobacco plant, it is separated from tar and other plant material that cause cancer when smoked.

Because there hasn't been any research into the long-term effects of inhaling nicotine vapor from an e-cigarette, we can't say for sure that they don't cause cancer. What we can say is that the e-cigarettes are most likely healthier than tobacco cigarettes because they lack the 4,000 plus chemicals from the tobacco leaves.

E-cigarettes hold nicotine in liquid form, which gets heated into a vapor and released when a user sucks on the end.

EonSmokes

That nicotine high

The stimulating effects of nicotine are immediate.

It makes its way through the mucus membranes of your lungs and into your bloodstream, then into your brain. When it hits your brain, nicotine binds to brain cells that turn on the body’s "wake-up call" pathways. It also releases dopamine, our "feel good" brain chemical, and glutamate, which is involved in learning and memory, reinforcing this good feeling and making your memory of it stronger.

In about an hour, half of the nicotine from that smoke is already broken down and expelled from your body, leaving you craving more.

Regular nicotine users develop a tolerance to the drug, making them use more and more, for example, moving from a cigarette a day to a few packs per week. The same thing can happen with inhaled nicotine.