It used to be if you wished to quit smoking you had to turn to drugs, hypnosis, gums or patches. However the latest in smoking aids appears to be a fairly new concept known as the electronic cigarette. While the Food and Drug administration will not allow electronic cigarettes to be labeled as an aid to stop smoking, many people all over the country are using them to wean themselves off of the tobacco cigarette.

The concept behind the electronic cigarette is simple. It looks and feels just like a real cigarette but it does not contain the harmful chemicals that a regular tobacco cigarette does. Instead there is a water vapor solution that contains the nicotine that most smokers are addicted to. The electronic cigarette is then used in a similar fashion to a real cigarette only instead of inhaling some of the 4,000 dangerous chemicals the person is using water vapor and getting their nicotine fix that way.

The electronic cigarette is being used as a stop smoking aid because the solution that is used with the cigarettes has a varying amount of nicotine in it. There are packages that contain high, medium, low and no nicotine. Smokers that are looking to quit gradually will make the switch to the electronic cigarette and slowly start to wean themselves down through the levels of nicotine until they are at the lowest level or on the no nicotine level.

With this understanding of how the electronic cigarette works it might cause many people to wonder why they cannot be labeled as stop smoking aids. The answer is fairly simple. Electronic cigarettes have only been in the United States for about two years. The Food and Drug Administration does not believe there has been enough studies or research done on it to allow it to be considered a smoking aid at the moment. That does not mean that it doesn’t work just that it hasn’t passed the tests.