I once read that smoking weed is perfectly admissible but having a cigarette is a nasty habit.

I don’t remember exactly who said it, only that it was a somewhat eccentric fashion designer trying to make a bold statement in an interview with GQ... or at least that’s how it seemed to me 10 years ago.  

Who would’ve thought those words would be an omen of what would happen in the years to come.

As an (almost) 30 year old in Philadelphia, when I ask someone if they smoke the answer is usually, “smoke what?”

In Colorado, the possession, use, production, distribution and cultivation of marijuana is legal, while in New York you can’t even light a cigarette in Central Park.

Personally, the decision to have a cigarette or not in a public space is often a matter of civility rather than legality. Just like I’ve had a cigarette in an out-of-the-way place where it was actually forbidden, at other times I’ve fought the urge to have a smoke, even when I could, in order to not bother the people around me.

The stigma and social pressure that smokers face are stronger everyday, the regulations for consumption of tobacco tougher, and the idea of glamour associated with smoking cigarettes ever more distant. Smoking is just not cool anymore.  

Because of that and a long list of health risks, it seems like nowadays more smokers are looking for healthier alternatives. 

Beyond gum, patches, inhalers and nasal sprays, or meds to inhibit the pleasurable effects of nicotine, the industry of e-cigarettes is booming, and as it expands, so do the options for consumers.

To learn more about e-cigarettes I went to South Street, where I remembered seeing a couple of vape stores where they sell these gadgets known as vaporizers.

There I met Cuong Truong, owner of Exclusive Vape Shop (EVS), who explained to me how e-cigarettes work: by heating a liquid and producing a vapor that is inhaled and exhaled like the smoke of a cigarette, but since it’s not, some argue that it’s healthier or less harmful, than traditional cigarettes.

The main ingredient of the solution known as “e-liquid” or “e-juice,” is propylene glycol, a colorless, and nearly odorless organic compound with a faintly sweet taste, that is “generally recognized as safe” by the FDA so it’s even used in food production. It also has vegetable glycerin, flavoring and nicotine — although this last is optional. That’s only a few ingredients compared to the thousands of chemicals and more than 40 carcinogens in traditional cigarettes.

After trying different flavors (mentholated, fruity, herbal, and combinations like melon with licorice, and maple with vanilla) I pick black tea.

One would think that for a smoker who is used to regular cigarettes, it would make more sense to choose a simple tobacco flavor, but that’s not necessarily the case.

“A lot of times new customers that come in are confused. They want something to taste like tobacco but they’re also used to tasting burnt ash and there’s no way we’re going to mimic that”, Truong said. “That would be disgusting.”

The next step is to choose the concentration of nicotine, which at EVS goes from zero to 24 mg/ml., and up to 48 mg/ml at other retailers.

“When new customers come in and tell us they want to quit smoking, we ask them what brand of cigarettes they smoke and how much, to figure out the concentration of nicotine,” Truong said. “We try to give them enough nicotine to feel as satisfied as with a regular cigarette, so they can transition to electronic cigarettes and then, if they want, they can gradually lower the concentration of nicotine.”

I smoke Capri, a not-so-known brand of ultralight and skinny cigarettes that tend to get people’s attention and are good for starting conversation with strangers. When they ask me what I’m smoking, I tell them they are the least harmful cigarettes out there — not that it’s scientifically proven.

Although Capris only have 0.8 mg. of nicotine, I select the e-juice with 12 mg/ml., a bit more than what I’m used to in order to compensate for the fact that, unlike traditional cigarettes, e-cigarettes don’t have tar or carbon monoxide.

Choosing a vaporizer was easy. Among many options, Truong recommended a starter kit. He then pulled out the components and started putting them together as if it was the modern equivalent of rolling a cigarette. He puts the juice in the tank, sets the atomizer that vaporizes it in place, attaches it to the part that stores the battery, which has a single button you have to press when inhaling and a small dial to regulate voltage, he turns it on, and voilà, I start smoking my very first e-cigarette.

When Truong transitioned to vaporizers, he had to buy them and the juices online. After he was able to quit smoking, he felt inspired to open up his business and he did so last winter, around the same time other vape shops started popping up on South Street.

“I tried it for two weeks and after that, I no longer had the urge to have a regular cigarette,” Truong said. “I couldn’t even have two puffs because the taste and effect were so strong”.

His story reminds me of my own experience with nicotine inhalers, which unlike electronic cigarettes, don’t require batteries but do require a prescription, and which I tried after my doctor offered me a free sample.

Another difference is that nicotine inhalers don’t release vapor, so even if you can feel the effects of the drug, you don’t really feel like you’re smoking. Inhaling from that little piece of white plastic secretly made me feel like I was smoking a tampon. No at all glamourous. But somehow the image of Gwyneth Paltrow with her ubiquitous nicotine inhaler in Wes Anderson’s “The Royal Tenenbaums,” became my inspiration. To my surprise, a couple days after starting with the nicotine inhaler, I stopped feeling the urge to have an actual cigarette and I felt perfectly satisfied smoking my tampon. All thanks to Gwyneth.

After a month without smoking and feeling full of energy, and after recovering my full sense of smell and taste, the nicotine cartridges that I got for free ran out. When I went to Walgreens to fill my prescription and I realized I had to shell out $300 dollars to buy enough cartridges for about three months, it suddenly made more financial sense to go buy a pack of cigarettes for less than $9  that would last me a few days. 

But smoking e-cigarettes is cheaper than regular cigarettes. A 50 ml. bottle of e-juice, which is equivalent to approximately four packs of cigarettes, costs less than $15; the initial cost of the vaporizer is $35, and you only have to replace the atomizer once a month for $2.

While the possible health risks of e-cigarettes continue being researched by doctors, among those who have transitioned to them there is a consensus that uncertainty is the lesser of two evils when compared to the proven risks of traditional cigarettes. Meanwhile, regulation around e-cigarettes continues to be a matter of debate among legislators and policy makers. In Philadelphia, a bill that bans the use of e-cigarettes in public places was signed into law by Mayor Michael Nutter last April, but the commonwealth of  Pennsylvania does not yet have a policy about regulating it.

As I write this article and my deadline for our weekly print edition approaches, I remain calm. Usually, this is the day of the week when I smoke the most, but in the last 24 hours I haven’t had a single cigarette. It may only be one day, but I hope this new experiment with e-cigarettes has the same effect on me than that nicotine inhaler I tried once before, like the one Gwyneth Paltrow used in “The Royal Tenenbaums.”

Let’s hope this time is for forever.