E-Cigarettes: A Brave New World When It Comes to Smoking

If marketing analysis is correct, the E-cigarette known as the NJOY King is going to be a bank idea. Cigarettes and tobacco have such world dominating revenue that NJOY had already made it to the 8-figure investment mark. Big business is a strange beast, but the components are in place to make this particular E-cig less of a toy, and more of a truly non-invasive replacement for the world's most popular carcinogen. Still the pervasive culture of smoking cigarettes will be changed, somehow, if these things blow up

The NJOY makers clearly pride themselves over the King’s astute mimicry of the old-fashioned tobacco-in-a-tube model. The King comes in bootleg Marlboro style pack, has the basic dimensions down, and glows a bright red through a simulated ashy tip when the user inhales.

Early adopters are still easily spotted, in my home of New York City, because they are the only ones smoking indoors. Elsewhere, still, when a person only takes one singular, solitary drag, and exhales a semi-translucent tuft, it becomes clear that the cigarette is not a cigarette after all. For now, the indoor part of the E-cig game is defiant one, much like the would-be smoke break with a convention bone that would happen outside, behind a dumpster or near some graffiti. Yesterday I saw a kid pull on an NJOY on the 4 train, his casual exhale screamed “take that, Bloomberg.”

Let us contemplate the near-future wherein E-cigs gain popularity, as expected. Smokers returning indoors will bring our future back to a Mad Men-era of hazey clubs, parlors, and sexy hotel lobbies. Will "no smoking" signs also read: "no vaporizing?" Probably on airplanes, they will. The word "bumming" will lessen in meaning. Convenience stores will suffer in revenue and be forced to improve their sandwich-making abilities.

The people who prefer to smoke traditional cigarettes will simply grit their yellow teeth and continue their lighter-flicking, pack-slapping ways, thus rendering them even more subversive and cool. The Noel Gallaghers of the world will have more to talk about when they go outside to have a smoke, like for instance, how the e-ciggers suck so badly.

I would like to remind these people of the future that their efforts to go against the grain play directly to the cards of big tobacco, who are the biggest squares there are. I, for one, own a big silly electronic vapo-pen, but it is not for tobacco. It’s for “forestation.”