Buck quit smoking tobacco cigarettes September 27th, 2011

I have been a pack and a half a day smoker since the age of 15. I decided to quite putting the harmful carcinogens into my body on the evening of September 27th of this year.

My plan was to change to the modern electronic cigarette. I was tired of feeling like, and being treated like a social outcast. Can't smoke here, you smell, little children turning their noses up at me when they notice that I'm a smoker.

I had tried the electronic cigarette products about a year ago and I found that some where better than others, some actually smoked and felt like a real tobacco cigarette, while others were just plain 'crap'.

I was introduced to the electronic cigarette by friend and when he described it to me, I had a hard time imagining the product. Finally I ordered one online. It was the type that had an atomizer built into the battery portion. I would order nicotine cartridges that would slip onto the atomizer. The problem with this type of electronic cigarette product was that the vapour or smoke that it produced was ok at the beginning or for say, the first 10 to 15 puffs, but then slowly the vapour produced became less and less, and the product felt less and less like a real cigarette.

The problem with this type of product, I now realize, is that the atomizer, the part of the electronic cigarette that changes the nicotine juice or liquid into vapour or smoke, would slowly become clogged with use. I found that if I waited 5 to 10 minutes between puffs, the cigarette would rejuvenate itself. (Not what an avid ex-smoker wants to do... wait 5 - 10 minutes between puffs)

When I relayed my disappointment to the company I purchased the product from, they explained and described to me the 'cartomizer' option. A 'Cartomizer' is a nicotine cartridge that contains it's own atomizer.... that way, every time I change a cartridge, I am replacing the atomizer and therefore the draw and smoke produced stayed more constant and was much closer to the feel of a real tobacco cigarette. I give cartomizers a 4 out of 5 'butt' rating!