Electronic Cigarettes History

Everything about the electronic cigarettes history. Who designed the first e-cig? Tracing the electronic cigarettes from the history of tobacco.

‘Electronic cigarettes’ is an umbrella term to describe electronic vaping devices. These devices vaporize liquid nicotine into a mist that’s inhaled by the user. The e-cigarette devices come in various shapes and sizes. There are e-cigs, vaporizers, atomizers, electronic pipes, vape pen, electronic cigars. Using one of these is called ‘vaping’. They are being marketed as a healthier alternative to tobacco products, though there is no research to categorically prove this. No study can yet determine whether the new technology might cause long-term side effects or health implications. The distinct lack of long-term research studies is because the products are relatively new to the market.

History of Tobacco

Smoking of the tobacco plant can be traced back as far as 600 – 900 AD in comparison to electronic cigarettes that are truly in their infancy having only made it to the mass market at the beginning of the naughties. It is thought that the original concept for an electronic ciggarettes alternative to tobacco smoking was conceived by Herbert Gilbert who filed a patent for the first ever electronic smoking device in 1963. At this time tobacco smoking was not perceived as a health threat – in fact to the contrary – and was so ingrained as the status quo in the social psyche that Gilbert simply didn’t have the custom for his product idea, and so it remained just that – an idea.

E-cigarettes Inventor

Gilbert failed to launch his product beyond the drawing board, but a few decades later Han Lik was considerably more successful when faced with a public well educated in the dangers of smoking tobacco. He used the death of his father from lung cancer as motivation to develop a way of  inhaling nicotine without the superfluous chemicals, toxic smoke, bleached paper and noxious tar entering the body with it. The company he worked for at the time, Ruyan, encouraged and supported Lik’s product invention, manufacturing and introducing them to the Chinese market in 2003. They were an instant success and within a few years the products similarly flourished in the European and US markets too.

In 2008-9 preliminary research results started to emerge, and a study conducted by Health New Zealand and with funding from Ruyan found that of 50 tobacco smoke toxins tested none were detectable above trace level in e-cigarette vapour. They concluded that inhaling mist from an electronic cigarette is 100-1000 times less dangerous than smoking tobacco cigarettes. Dr Murray Laugesen who conducted the study said,

“They are not going to die from an e-cigarette-but they could die tomorrow from a heart attack due to their smoking.” (source)

Electronic cigarettes history conclusion

In spite of some positive results from the initial short-term studies, some countries imposed strict regulations due to the uncharted territory of such a new and untested technology, and others implemented both full and partial bans backed by legal legislature. It would be tedious to outline the laws and regulations in every country, but some are particularly interesting. For instance, Canada allows the advertisement, use and sale of electronic vaporizers, however it is entirely illegal to bring the devices and paraphernalia into the country from elsewhere. Brazil has imposed a full ban on the usage, advertisement, sale and purchase of e-cigs, determining that e-cigarettes are imitation tobacco. The use and sale of e-cigs are legal in most European countries, with the exception of France which has imposed bans to treat e-cigarettes with the same stringent laws for traditional tobacco products.