SuperSmoker

Okay, this one's a little odd...

I gave up smoking years ago, but I was invited to last night's UK press launch of a product called SuperSmoker. This is an 'electronic cigarette', one that uses no tobacco and doesn't even burn. It produces no carcinogens and it can be used even where you can't smoke the real things any more: bars, clubs, buses, planes - although it looks so much like the real thing that you'll be constantly having to explain or just weather evil looks. Check out the amusing video at http://www.supersmoker.co.uk/

Yep, it looks pretty much like a regular cig, it produces what looks just like smoke, the tip lights up when you take a drag, it even tastes just like the better part of how (meaning how I remember) a cigarette tastes. But it won't kill you or anyone near you.

Depending on which disposable filter you use, you can get varying hits of nicotine or even none at all, although all have a tobacco taste. It uses a rechargeable battery, a couple of micro-processors, an LED, a heating element, and a disposable filter that contains the tobacco-flavoured liquid that makes the pseudo-smoke. This is a little bit of science fiction, surely?

The event was held in a casino in central London, and all the invited journalists were given a SuperSmoker to try. Because the 'smoke' is really vaporised liquid, not carbon particles and everything else, the space didn't go hazy like an old-time bookie's. What was a little odd was how nobody at any of the card tables near the group that were puffing away even raised an eyebrow. Too busy watching the cards, I guess.

I went there as much out of curiosity as anything. I left with my curiosity satisfied, a SuperSmoker kit of my own to play with... and the thought that this might actually be the future of smoking! At around £80 the thing itself isn't cheap - but that's only a dozen or so packs of 20 real ones here in the UK. And the disposable filters last longer and cost a lot less than cigarettes from then on.

Nope, I'm not now a SuperSmoker - not really. But I'd be delighted if real smokers started to switch to this. It isn't unhealthy, the 'smoke' dissipates quickly, your clothes/fingers/breath/clothes don't stink - and there won't be piles of stubbed-out butts kicking around the doorways of buildings. Got to be a good thing, huh? What do you think?