Jai

Age at interview: 43

Brief Outline: Jai has been smoking for about twenty five years. He has used different methods to try to give up smoking like patches, chewing gum - but he always ended up going back to smoking cigarettes. In December 2014 he started using e-cigarettes every day and he has reduced cigarettes from twenty a day to five or ten a week. He said that it is important to find the right flavour that works for you.

Background: Jai is divorced and has two teenage children. He works as an engineer. Ethnic background: White British.

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Jai has been smoking for about twenty five years. In the past, he tried different methods – the patches, the chewing gum - to try to give up smoking, but he always ended up going back to cigarettes. In December 2014, he started using e-cigarettes every day and he has reduced cigarettes from twenty a day to five or ten a week.
 
His decision to try e-cigarettes came after he realised he was smoking mostly out of habit, not enjoyment. The second reason was financial. He reckons that now he spends around seven pounds a week compared with the eight to ten pounds a day he used to spend. Health wise he feels a lot better too, he used to have a slight smoker’s cough.
 
Jai bought his e cigarette kit in September 2014 and he used it on and off for several months without really committing to it. His attitude and smoking behaviour changed when he found a flavour that has worked for him. He found it easier to vape regularly once he tasted aniseed. Most days he doesn’t smoke cigarettes, but when out socialising with friends who smoke, he finds it tricky, especially if alcohol is involved. In general, Jai has noted that vaping has reduced the amount of smoking he does. He reckons that since starting using e-cigarettes, he is vaping the equivalent of eight to ten cigarettes a week instead of the twenty a day.
 
Apart from aniseed, Jai also likes menthol and mint flavours and buys them online because it is cheaper. Jai has reduced the nicotine content on his menthol flavour to a lower strength. It is a strong flavour, so he finds eleven milligrams of nicotine is sufficient. He wants to eventually reduce the amount of nicotine to zero and once he is vaping just water, to stop smoking altogether. He doesn’t have a deadline, but feels confident he will eventually give up smoking.
 
Jai found information about e cigarettes online but did not talk to his GP about his intention to give up smoking through the use of e-cigarettes.
 

Jai compares how much money he used to spend when smoking conventional cigarettes to how much he spends now on e-cigarettes.

I think it's a positive one. It's leading me in the right way. I mean, financially most people can't afford to smoke anymore; I know I can't, but somehow I seem to find the money to buy them, I've no idea how. Because when you look at what I'm spending a month and thinking, 'Where have I got that from?' You know, so yeah it's definitely a positive and I would recommend it to anybody.
 
Exactly. So, it would be monthly, on average now you're spending twenty eight pounds?
 
If that yeah. That includes the purchase of any cigarettes as well. So, if you took out… I mean there are weeks where I don’t smoke any cigarettes at all. So, if you took that out, its three pounds ninety nine a week, which is what one bottle of the stuff is.
 
OK, and before when you were just smoking, how much?
 
About sixty to eighty pounds a week.
 
Well, twenty cigarettes are anything up to about nine pounds. So, if I'm smoking twenty a day, you know? And obviously if you're going out on a… if you’ve got a weekend out, you always tend to… especially when alcohol's involved, you always tend to smoke more. So, you can… I think the worst I've been is going out for a drink and smoking forty cigarettes over a period of say eight hours, which is horrific really when you look back.

Jai calculates that he is smoking less with e-cigarettes than he did with conventional ones.

So, like the size of a packet of ten cigarettes. Now it's got a counter on the side. So, they reckon on average, it's fifteen puffs – you usually get between fifteen and twenty puffs per cigarette from a normal smoker. So, if I had one before work, one at break time, two at lunch time; so, during the day time, as a whole, during the whole day I'd smoke twenty cigarettes. On this, I'm probably up to about a hundred and sixty puffs, so divide that by twenty, so about eight to ten cigarettes I'm down to.
 
Yeah
 
So, it's actually… I am reducing… even though I vape during the day time as and when, rather than actually going outside for ten minutes and smoking solidly, which is when you end up puffing more.
 
So, yes I do use it, I wouldn’t say it's constant but it's a continuous use, but I use it less than I would do if I was smoking cigarettes.
 
OK. And do you use cigarettes on a daily basis?
 
No
 
Not now?
 
No
 
Its occasional then?
 
I'd say it's probably a couple of times a week.

At first, Jai found it difficult to stick to e-cigarettes but now enjoys an aniseed flavour. He describes accessories that can make vaping more like smoking conventional cigarettes.

I've been smoking for about twenty five years I suppose; tried most things on the market – the patches, the chewing gum – pretty much all of them, and they worked for a certain period of time and then you always end up going back to cigarettes, or I always end up going back to cigarettes. With these, I still do smoke, but probably about five to ten a week, in comparison to twenty a day.
 
So these really are helping. And, the thing is it's a learning curve, because there's so many different flavours in the market, you find ones that suit you; ones that don’t, you end up smoking, going back to smoking quicker. So, I did start on these last year, and they were OK but they wasn’t completely successful, but as I've tried different flavours, I'm introducing the vaping more and more, rather than staying on cigarettes.
 
OK. And did you combine the filling with nicotine and flavours or?
 
Yeah, I buy the pre-mix ones, so I started at the highest level and I'm about half way through now.
 
So, what's the highest level?
 
I believe it's about twenty eight milligrams, I think it is.
 
Of nicotine?
 
Of nicotine, and I'm down to eighteen now.
 
OK
 
And then the next level's eleven, then eight, and then zero, so I'm working my way down, and smoking these more.
 
The e-cigarette. So, for how long have you been using the e-cigarette?
 
On and off since about September, but since Christmas I've been using it pretty much every day.
 
OK, when you say on and off…?
 
As in, smoke for one day, two days e-cigarette, and then back to smoking, so it just varied as and when I used it. But like I said, that’s down to flavour choice, because I found one specific flavour that I will happily smoke all the time, but the problem is, because you order it online I tend to run out, and if they haven’t stocked it, because it is very, very popular.
 
And which flavour it is?
 
Aniseed
 
Aniseed?
 
R:         Yeah
 
OK. So, it's a combination of aniseed and nicotine?
 
Yes
 
So, was it easy to get used to…
 
I found it tricky because of the flavouring. It's completely different. Where, smoking cigarettes is a warm, moist smoke, these are very dry, so you do notice the dryness of the mouth, and you can get a case of a dry… you do have a dry cough, but it's not continuously, like occasionally you'll just cough, but it's a dryness, so you do end up drinking a bit more water or whatever, because they are… the vapour's very dry. I think that’s what can put people off; is the fact that you're used to that warm, moist smoke, but this is...
 
A dry one
 
A dry one. But you can, like I say, with some products you can actually warm the vapour up, which does help.
 
And where did you get those products and…?
 
On the internet again.
 
OK, and what are they called?
 
They're called mods, because it's a modification. This is like a standard e-cigarette, but you get these things called modifications, where you put the same top on but it's the bottom bit where you can adjust the power, the wattage, and which can then generate heat to let you have that warm vapour.
 
OK, so it simulates more the-cigarettes?
 
It simulates… yeah, so that… it was fairly low cost compared to what some… I mean you can go from these, about ten pounds, up to six hundred pounds so.
 
Oh gosh [laughs].
 
But, if the six hundred pound gives you the result that you want which is not smoking, and I think that’s definitely a benefit, because you'll probably spend more than, far more than six hundred pound a year on smoking so.

By chance rather than choice Jai reduced the nicotine dose. Ideally, he would like to bring down the nicotine dose to zero and then, to stop smoking all together.

So, you tried different flavours and aniseed is the one that worked for you?
 
For now yes
 
OK. And at what moment do you start reducing the amount of nicotine on the vapour?
 
I'll be honest with you, it was more luck than judgement because the high strength one they didn’t have, so I had to go to the lower strength, in the aniseed, and then I've just stuck with that.
 
The main two flavours I use are aniseed and menthol, or mint flavour. Now, the mint flavour, because it gives you quite a sharp hit… you know, like extra strong mints, it gives you quite a strong hit in the back of your throat. So, I'm on eleven milligrams with my mint. So, so some flavours do vary, but generally, yes I am working my way down. Ideally, I want to get to not using it at all, but I have to lower myself down. Ideally, I'd like to probably stay on the zero for a few months before I realise that my body doesn’t actually need that; it's just a habit of using this you know. So, zero, but ideally not nothing at all. So, I'm on my way down but I'm not there yet.