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IQOS stands for I Quit Original Smoking and that’s what happened when Charl Blignaut tested the revolutionary tobacco-dispensing device. But listen up kids, even if it claims to reduce the risks of smoking, that doesn’t mean it’s good for you.
I guess this is the column where I confess that I have an addictive personality and an advanced oral fixation. (You gheys at the back, stop sniggering please.) I smoked cigarettes from when I was 14 years old – and I’m now 48. A full-blown dzaddy with a smoker’s cough.
That’s until a month ago when I woke up in the middle of the night and battled the temptation to light an old-fashioned Marlboro. I lost the battle. But before long I was standing in the dark frowning. The thing tasted awful, the room smelt gross ... what was I thinking? For the first time in my life I stubbed out the cigarette. I’ve never smoked another, even when double load-shedding meant my IQOS device couldn’t be recharged and was useless to me.
I now smoke Heets, the mini cigarettes that you see everywhere from the petrol garage shop to the supermarket. They cost about the same as cigarettes but, if you’re like me, you’ll smoke more at first, as you transition in what is effectively a tech change-up so radical it’s like VHS moving to DVD.
Marlboro, of course, won’t worry about me kicking the Gold habit, because IQOS is developed and produced by the same company, Philip Morris.
Don’t treat the beautifully designed IQOS as a cigarette, though. Treat it more like an iPod or cellphone. It’s about the tech and if you follow its instructions it will tell you what to do.
You insert a Heet gently into the device and press a button. It’ll vibrate almost immediately and then, a short while later, it’ll vibrate twice to indicate the cigarette is heated up enough to smoke. What’s not to love? No matches or lighters, plus vibrating tech (and a lot of bad jokes). When you’re approaching the end it double-vibrates again and you have about 30 seconds of smoking left. You release the smoked Heet and pop the device into its charging holder. It’ll need time to recharge, a minute or two, which will put paid to chain smoking. The cigarette holder is ready when a light goes on. The holder will show you how charged the device is in a display of four lights, the plan being that you need to charge the holder for only 90 minutes or so ahead of taking it out for the day. Follow the instructions and clean the device once a day else small bits of burnt tobacco might build up in it.
Heets are available in only three “colours” and that’s plenty. The green menthols are the key to quitting traditional cigarettes; they hit the spot and make you feel you’ve smoked an old-school cigarette. The orange taste like wood and the yellow are a decent smoke, much like the Marlboro Gold I now reject.
Philip Morris says the IQOS and its accompanying Heets are a less risky option than traditional cigarettes because they heat up and don’t burn, reducing the carcinogens and tar-like substances smokers inhale – and have presented scientific evidence to prove this. But to make that claim in advertising in the US (the device is already huge in Japan, as it launches in South Africa) they needed the buy-in of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A few weeks back the FDA ruled that it could not support the claims of risk-reduction. While the committee reportedly voted in favour of a claim that IQOS reduces the body’s exposure to harmful or potentially harmful chemicals, it voted against the idea that “reductions in exposure are reasonably likely to translate to a measurable and substantial reduction in morbidity and or mortality”.
According to reports, for the bulk of the claims to stick, users would have to abandon traditional cigarettes completely and the FDA found this to be a low-to-medium likelihood.
But I “quit” with ease. Traditional cigarettes are disgusting to me; my apartment no longer smells of smoke (there’s a slight smell to the smoke emanating from the Heets but nothing hectic) and my cough is gone. It was briefly replaced by a stuttering little cough as I got used to the new smoking mode.
But don’t be fooled. There’s a huge concern these kinds of smoking devices, vapes and e-cigarettes are making smoking sexy again and inviting a whole new generation to destroy their lungs with prettier-smelling, nicer-tasting, handsomely designed alternatives that are still massively harmful.
I’d encourage long-term smokers to switch at once – but hope no new smokers are adopting the now teched-up habit.
- Visit za.iqos.com to see which stores stock the devices, which start at R850. Heets are available everywhere, starting at R37 for 20. If your device is faulty, there is a national helpline
