All but the most deluded smokers will probably agree to some extent that smoking cigarettes is an unsavory habit. By now, it’s no secret how deadly smoking is, and many of us know at least one person who had died from it.

So why is it that vaporizers, which can eliminate virtually all toxins, are used almost exclusively for marijuana? Are potheads not as dumb as we’ve been lead to believe?

A visitor recently asked me if I had any suggestions for vaporizing tobacco. I didn’t, and neither did Google. A quick web search on “vaporizing tobacco” didn’t produce much useful information. The best I could find were some pages listing the vaporization points of various plants. Tobacco’s seemed to be 125°C to 150°C (257F to 302F), which seems a little low.

Anyway, he said he was using a Vapir One at 350F with pipe tobacco, which produced a visible vapor and an immediate buzz comparable to smoking 3 cigarettes at once. I assume it was pleasurable as he mentioned that he used 5 or 6 water pipe sized bowls in one night.

Apparently there are already some smokeless cigarettes out there. Aeros claim to produce a nicotine and flavor vapor through capillary action, and to last up to 30 times longer than normal cigarettes. I’m not entirely sure how these work but they sound almost too good to be true. They declined my request for more information, citing concerns over trademark secrets.

Tobacco giant Phillip Morris is testing a new product called the HeatBar, which heats tobacco and is said to produce less smoke. Sounds like some sort of crude vaporizer, I’m guessing it’s mainly a loophole to skirt smoking bans in Australia and Switzerland, where it’s to be debuted. North Americans won’t see it anytime soon because apparently “it’s too strange a concept for smokers to embrace”. I guess Phillip Morris hasn’t seen too many late night tv infomercials.

The important thing to consider is that there are safer ways to ingest nicotine. Combustion is going out of style.

This post was fairly rushed, I’ll update as more information is available.

Quick addendum to this unfinished post

• Commercial cigarette tobacco is loaded with nasty additives, be sure to look into some organic stuff
• The Purple-Days vaporizer seems to be a good fit for smokers making the switch
• It seems that Aeros are just a brand/variation of e-cigarette, which use nebulizers to vaporize a liquid nicotine solution.
• More comments on vaporizing tobacco in our forum