I don’t smoke so I don’t really know what E-cigarettes are all about except that they are some sort of electronic pacifiers.

I did, however, grow up in the tobacco fields and after considering the chemicals we put on tobacco to kill insects, I put two and two together and came up with a pretty good rationale as to why I didn’t want to smoke cigarettes. Aside from the fact that introducing anything foreign into one’s lung tissue can’t be a good thing, putting stuff into your lungs that could kill creatures that resemble miniature dinosaurs further made my case.

Now back to those E-things. Apparently they are billed as more efficient and safer ways to deliver nicotine to the body. By the way, nicotine is used in insecticides. It, too, can kill creatures that resemble miniature dinosaurs.

Recently I watched a fellow smoking an E-cigarette. But now I understand “smoking” may not be the correct term. I think they call it “vaporing.” My understanding of the process is that it involves liquid nicotine converted to a vapor. Somehow this gets billed as being safer? An electric current is involved. Wow! There’s something that sounds exciting. Let me stick something involving electricity in my mouth!

Anyway, this fellow looked like a dork. My thought was why not just take a nicotine pill and then stick a ballpoint pen in your mouth.

And now we have E-cigars.

So can you be a member of a cigar club with E-cigars? I dunno.

I Googled E-Cigar and from a distance it is shaped and colored like a real cigar. They even come with chewable tips. And you can get designer cases in which to carry them. I guess it’s sort of a pacifier on steroids.

I guess there are some advantages to E-cigarettes and E-cigars. I don’t think they smell as bad, and you won’t burn holes in your shirts and ties because there’s no ash to fall off.

Like I said, I grew up on a tobacco farm. It was a leading cash crop at the time, but it also was awash in hypocrisy. I noticed back in those days that few country preachers would list cigarettes among the vices to avoid for a clean, spiritual body. A couple of our preachers smoked and one even grew tobacco. Had they preached against smoking, they would have been meddling. So they stuck to drinking, cursing and dancing.

I tried smoking a pipe in college. This was when I took a philosophy class. Apparently someone had come up with the notion that deep thinking and smoking a pipe were cause and effect. Well that’s not so. You can have deep thoughts eating a bologna sandwich or chewing bubble gum. You can even be a congressman and have deep thoughts. Allegedly.

I was good at philosophy but terrible at smoking a pipe. I couldn’t keep one lit, and I was always dropping ashes all over me. While the other guys were deep into Socrates and Plato, I was trying to cut a firebreak in my tie. Somewhere in the bottom of the lake out at Stone Mountain, there’s a pipe. I threw it there.

There’s some debate going on right now about E-cigarettes. Some pose that the vapor is dangerous and of course others point out that nicotine in general poses a risk. Some communities are proposing that they be banned. Others argue that they are a good step toward quitting smoking. Whatever, it’s not a big issue with me. I’m way past the hypocrisy of growing the stuff, and I tend to embrace medical science.

One day a fellow came into my office and challenged me to show him just one person that was proved to have died from smoking cigarettes. I told him it was illegal to dig up dead people. He got all huffy and left.

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. Email: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)