Andy Pickering: I know a trend when I see one

Andy Pickering. Photo / Doug Sherring

Not wishing to sound pompous, but I've never found it especially hard to give up smoking. I've given up quite successfully a number of times.

But a few months ago I bumped into my old mate Nick Dwyer. He had an e-cigarette and casually explained that he'd given up tobacco and taken up vaping (e-cigarettes). He made it look like the most natural thing in the world.

I know a hot trend when I spot one and I jumped on board.

You can buy e-cigs wherever you buy herbal highs. Yeah, sex stores and those awful dance pill emporiums. E-cigs are still in that unregulated, hard-to-find phase. Nick and I are what you'd call early adopters, I guess.

They're an endless topic of fascination at parties, and the fun you can have by puffing merrily away in hospitals and airports ...

Thing is though, e-cigs work.

They can't be sold legally as an aid to give up smoking but, in my experience, they are a very effective substitute for the real thing. E-cigs provide almost all of the upside or benefits that smokers crave from tobacco products with a significantly reduced downside.

You still hold a cigarette-shaped device in your hand, but you don't get anywhere near the nasty chemical cocktail that comes with the real thing.

Whenever I get the craving for a cigarette, I simply pull out my e-cigarette, have one or two puffs, and that's all I really want.

Back in the pocket it goes.