Introduction
The vaping community has been on a rise over recent years, and it may appear to be a recent phenomenon that has suddenly exploded in popularity. However, vaping has actually been an ever-growing industry over the span of the last few years. In this article, we would like to go over the history of vaping and how it’s come about. Read more to find out about the ways in which vaping has grown over the years and how it has established and grounded itself in our society today. And after you’re done, check out elf bar for sale for disposable vapes!
Early False Starts
You might be wondering when the first idea of replacing cigarettes came about. In actual fact, it sprung up almost a century ago, by a man named Joseph Robinson. In 1927, he was the first person to file a patent for a device that would replace cigarettes, which are combustible in nature, with one that requires the use of electricity to heat up tobacco instead of burning it like a cigarette. Although it has not been confirmed that Joseph Robinson was the inventor of or if there was even a device that was built, it never made it to the market regardless. This is because the technology of battery at the time was not yet advanced enough, and would have been an extremely inconvenient device had it been produced at the time.
Then, in 1963, we saw another American named Herbert Gilbert, who filed an electric cigarette patent which actually took a similar shape to the vape devices we see around today. In his case, he actually made a prototype that was functional. However, this prototype never made it into production, and this was apparently because most of the manufacturers at the time were unwilling to pay for the licensing of his patent. Instead, they wanted to wait till his patent expired, though his claims were unsubstantiated.
In the late 1970s to early 1980s, there was another pair of Americans that were creating a device that would evaporate nicotine to allow for inhalation, which is a similar concept to vaping. However, the device took a very different shape and also had many issues in its functionalities. Although the device did not see success, its’ inventor Phil Ray was actually the first individual who coined the term “vape”, and its meaning has been attributed to the act of inhaling nicotine without the smoke involved.
A Chinese Revolution
It was only in the early 2000s did the formation of the modern e-cigarette come to be. The inventor of this version of e-cigarette was Hon Lik, a Chinese pharmacist who started the creation of this device in 2003 as a replacement for cigarettes due to his father’s contraction of lung cancer after excessive consumption of cigarettes throughout his adult life.
His first formulation of the vape device was the e-cigar, which was named due to how it was shaped and its size. In Chinese, the device would have been named the Ruyan, which would mean “like smoking”. This device exploded in popularity in the local Chinese market. The next device that was created was the cigalike, which was a smaller device and would take a similar size and feel to an actual cigarette. The device even imitated the nature of the cigarette when it was being lit, also producing a glowing light at the tip of the cigalike, whenever the user took a puff. There has even been a Netflix documentary series named Broken which was made to showcase Hon’s invention of the early vape device.
Although the initial designs and models of these cigarette alternatives did not see much success in the market at the time, due to the lack of proper advancements and cultivation of the technology, the late 200s saw a rise in the usage of cigalikes. Soon after, vaping devices started their popularity boom and as people sought after cigarette replacements due to their negative health effects, this signalled the birth of modern-day vaping.
An Age of Refinement
These early vapers started to make adjustments to their devices, looking to customise their vaping experiences. Some customisations involved wanting to create bigger hits that were also more satisfying. These devices were classified as mods, which was a term that is applicably termed for any advanced vapour device. The name ‘mod’ would stick even in the future as the devices started undergoing mass production.
However, many of these early mods were mechanical, which meant they only had a battery and a switch to control the supply of the battery. This was presented as rather dangerous, and hence refinements started being made to ensure that the device would be safe to use. These mods with added safety features were known as regulated mods and started undergoing mass production soon after.
The First Boom
The cigalike soon lost its popularity in the early 2010s. It was then replaced by mods and vape pens, which was a repackaged, smaller, and simpler to use version of the device. As these products were being mass-produced, vaping exploded in popularity worldwide. By 2014, the number of vapours almost quadrupled from just seven million in 2011 to 25 million in 2014.
Return of the Cigalike
Although cigalike had stopped most of its production by 2016, a new company Juul introduced a new version of the product. It was the same size as an actual cigarette but had an extremely sleek design that imitated the look of a USB flash drive. They also introduced a novel way to deliver nicotine to the vaping individual by adjusting the chemistry of the formula of the vapour. This made the vapour more smooth to inhale but reached the bloodstream in the same amount of time as traditional cigarettes would. Hence, the product would be able to contain as much as 20 times more nicotine than all other e-cigs.
Conclusion
Vaping continues to increase in popularity, as the rate of smoking has started to fall. Known to be a much healthier alternative to cigarette smoking, it shows hopeful promise in fully replacing cigarettes in the future.
