The First Smokeless Cigarette
Recently more people have been trying out smokeless cigarettes. Everyone knows that smoking is bad for your health, with a variety of lung diseases and other health problems associated with it. Much of these problems are actually caused by inhaling smoke, not from the nicotine itself. Thus more smokers are trying out electric cigarettes that don’t involve actual smoke. As popular as the idea is now, it wasn’t always that way.
The idea for the smokeless cigarette was patented in 1963. This was around the time the first serious health reports about smoking were being released. Cigarette manufacturers figured that if they took a nicotine solution and made a way for people to inhale it as an aerosol, it would get rid of most of the health effects. However, the idea was not popular. Most people didn’t know how unhealthy smoking was, so there was little interest. Nothing was ever released on the market.
By the 80s things had changed. The first real smokeless cigarette to go on the market was the Premier in 1988. Developing the Premier cost over one billion dollars! However, it was not without flaws. The premier had a funny aftertaste, and many people who tried it out didn’t stick with it long enough to get used to it. It was removed from stores a year later, but it had paved the way for better products ahead.
Nowadays smokeless cigarettes, more commonly called e-cigarettes, are a common sight anywhere that smokers gather. They come in a variety of flavors and are much safer than conventional cigarettes. But it wouldn’t have been possible without many failed attempts decades ago.