E-cigarettes: no smoke without ire

by Lionel Shriver


I've long been a decorative smoker. One daily roll-up hasn't imperilled my health much, and it's rescued me from the ranks of the self-righteous. I've relished the dash of badness, but my indulgence has come at a price: complicity. My more heavily addicted husband has smoked from the age of 19. So long as I join him in the odd postprandial drag, I'm a bad influence.

Last month I switched to an e-cig. I'm a convert. Sleek, black, and easily confused with a fine-point felt-tip, this newfangled "nicotine delivery system" is dead cool. The gently warm vapour ingeniously replicates the reflective pause of a real fag, the same quiet little buzz. But it doesn't stink up your breath, cover surfaces with ash, turn the air acrid, stain your fingers, brown your teeth, reduce bone mass of the jaw, promote gum disease, or – wait for the drum roll – cause cancer.

Life is now. Don't let the professional anti-smoking brigade ruin it

There are about 10 million adult smokers in the UK. None are professional. There are far too many professional anti-smokers whose aim is to get rid of smoking altogether. They will fail.

They are people with a purpose in life (and are convinced everyone would be better off not smoking), but others can have a purpose in life as I do, which I'm quite convinced keeps me going, as did Monet (never seen without a cigarette in his mouth).

The NHS never mentions this, and few doctors do. We live in a very shallow age. Now the latest thing is that bacon is bad for you, another killer. It's as though shortly death itself can be postponed. That seems to be a mad aim.

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We are all going to die, and this luckily comes at the end of life. People are living longer, yes, but this includes the smokers. We are moving into a very different world. Newspapers are dying (the young don't read them), and online everyone becomes editor. Things are going to be very different.