Chinese "e-cigarette" helps you get rid of the habit
It feels like a cigarette, seems to be a cigarette but it isn’t harmful for your health.
A Chinese company offers the first "electronic" cigarette in the world hoping to increase sales doubly this year because it expands overseas and due to the fact some of China’s legions of smokers try to quit.
The cigarettes by Golden Dragon Group Ltd’s Ruyan are battery-powered, cigarette-shaped kits that carry nicotine to inhalers in an attempt to emulate actual smoking.
The electronic cigarette technology was developed by Scott Fraser, Vice President of SBT Co. Ltd., the Beijing in 2003; it is now controlled by Golden Dragon.
"It feels like a cigarette, looks like a cigarette, it even emits vapour. In many ways, it is like an actual smoking experience, and that’s what makes us different," he told Reuters.
The cigarettes cost for about $208 each and at present are available in China, Israel, Turkey, and a number of European countries, but not yet the United States.
Golden Dragon’s are competitive to such global giants as Pfizer and Novartis AG, which sell more spread nicotine substitute products such as chewing gum, patches, and inhalers.
But Golden Dragon’s financial results show it seems to be a good thing. Sales increased more than doubly in 2006, in comparison with 2005, a year after the technology was perfected.
There are 400 million smokers in China and tobacco industry returns a roughly $160 billion dollar where Ruyan sales compose 65 percent.
