Age of the electronic spliff!

First we saw the arrival of the electronic cigarette 

and sales have been booming as smokers reap the suggested benefits of leaving behind traditional cigarette smoking in favour of new technology. 

Now we are seeing something completely new arriving on the streets of the UK, the electronic joint! 

Ben is  the worried parent of a teenage boy in South London and recently discovered a strange object in his son’s bedroom. “At first I thought it was a laser pen but when I asked him what it was he told me it was an electronic joint and he was looking after it for a friend!”  In fact the product Ben found is called a herb pen and is a specially adapted electronic cigarette intended for use with cannabis. The manufacturers will tell you they are only intended as an alternative to herbal cigarettes but many market analysts are reporting that these items are currently being offered wholesale to UK retailers as an electronic joint. Also known as “herb pens” or “sheesha sticks” these products are finding their way to the UK market and are being sold for around £20 often to intrigued youngsters already using cannabis. Raymond is a regular user of cannabis and lives in Manchester. He told me that he and his friends all use an electronic spliff and states that it means they can get a “good blow” without inhaling “mad chemicals” put in cigarettes. The sheesha stick works by the user placing the illegal drug inside the pen in a chamber that sits on a plate. The plate is made to receive direct heat from a coil powered by the battery which makes up half of the product. The result is pure cannabis fumes released as it burns on the plate. 

The user then inhales this to get a “hit”  We asked Dr Nigel Stokes of the Aireshire advanced medical research facility if he believed these products were a new danger to drug users. He told us that he believed using cannabis in any way at all will ultimately result in many health complications and the electronic products now being made available as a new method of delivery will certainly continue to make that a reality. However he also said that if users are not now inhaling smoke from cigarettes along with the cannabis as usual then there would be obvious health benefits associated with that change. One UK retailer we discovered selling these products is operating on the internet as www.executivevapours.com, UK electronic cigarette expert Mr Paul Jackson owns www.executivevapours.com and we asked him if he was concerned over the use of herb pens. “We sell herb pens as a part of our general electronic cigarette offering to legal smokers and absolutely do not encourage anyone to use them for any illegal purpose. However what people do once they receive our products we have no control over.” When asked why he chose to name the product “the little secret” he told us that this was the name of the product he was sold by his suppliers and hadn’t thought much about it before now” So it seems that technology has now found its way into the life of the stoner! We are living in the age of the electronic joint, the question now is if it is merely a passing fad or here to stay?