13 May 2015

"Competitive vaping"

Welcome to the newest entrant in the extreme sports category: “cloud chasing.” Competitors play it... with electronic cigarettes. They are called cloud chasers, and their devoted fans are cloud gazers. Competitions like this have been heating up world-wide...

Competitions are straightforward. Cloud chasers inhale on the devices, which convert e-cigarette “juice” into vapor. They then toast the competition by blowing the biggest, densest vapor cloud possible. In less than two years, the sport has adopted all the trappings of professional athletics. It not only has fans but teams, sponsors and cash prizes...

The origins of this sport are somewhat foggy. E-cigarettes first arrived in the U.S. about eight years ago, but it wasn’t until two years ago, when vape shops took off, that shopkeepers started hosting contests to attract customers. Now, there are an estimated 8,500 vape shops in the U.S., doing $1.2 billion in sales, and the number of contests has exploded...
More information at the Wall Street Journal.

3 comments:

  1. How very sad. I say this as a person who smoked 2 1/2 packs of cigarettes a day for 36 years. Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs around. Just as cigarette smoking was declining, at least in the US, the vested interests had to come up with another way to deliver the drug so they could addict people and make lots of money.

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    1. As I understand it the "juice" used in vaping can be formulated to have as much or as little nicotine as is desired, even none at all. I believe that so called "Cloud Chasers" use very low nicotine mixtures out of necessity because otherwise nicotine poisoning is a danger.

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  2. is the inhalation of vaping exhalations considered 'second hand' smoke???

    I-)

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