Electronic cigarettes may seem like a very new and trendy technology. In reality, e-cigarettes, as they’re often called, have been around for a number of years, though they’ve only recently become popular in the United States. Today’s modern solution to cigarettes adds flavor with the introduction of vape liquid. In Boston, MA, the estimated numbers of people who vape or use e-cigarettes has gone up more than 800 percent since 2014! Herbert A. Gilbert is credited with filing the first patent for an electronic smoking device. The Korean War veteran filed a patent for electronic cigarettes in 1963. His goal was to create a product that eliminated fire from smoking. He created prototypes using a battery powered cigarette that used flavored water as steam. At the time, cigarettes were commonly used indoors and socially acceptable in just about all public spaces. That may be why electronic cigarettes never caught on back then. Though similar, today’s electronic cigarettes differ from the design Gilbert filed for his patent. Han Lik, a Chinese pharmacist, developed the electronic cigarettes widely available today. Lik’s father died of lung cancer, and the young pharmacist hoped to create a method that enabled smokers to get a nicotine fix without inhaling smoke and other chemicals. His electronic cigarettes took off in China, sold under the name Ruyan, which means “like smoke.” While his electronic smokes were widely available in China and very popular in Europe, it would take a few years before the item reached the U.S. shores. They hit American stores in 2007, and researchers began taking note. Researchers aren’t in full agreement about the health effects of electronic cigarettes, but a variety of studies have reported that e-cigarettes are safer than tobacco cigarettes and that they help smokers replace their cigarette habits. Despite recent bans on the products in places like Australia and Canada, and even a Federal Drug Administration stop shipment order refusing to allow e-cigarettes into the U.S. in 2009, more and more smokers are turning to this tobacco alternative. After a variety of U.S. court cases, a U.S. Court of Appeals rules that the FDA can regulate e-cigarettes as a tobacco product, but the agency cannot ban the product outright. Court cases in a number of states haven’t stopped former smokers from choosing this smokeless tobacco alternative. Use of vaporizers has grown at astonishing rates between 51 percent and 126 percent annually since 2012. With potential health benefits and numerous flavors available in vape liquid in Boston, MA, it’s no surprise that more and more smokers are choosing to try electronic cigarettes.
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