It won't be long before you start seeing people in Honolulu restaurants and bars puffing on cigarettes again and, for the time being, it will be legal.

For all those poor addicted smokers forced to loiter outside bars by the dumpsters or banished to their company's parking lot to have a puff, technology has come to their rescue. The hottest thing, so to speak, for smokers are E-Cigarettes, literally electronic cigarettes that give the “;smoker”; a kick of nicotine with every puff and even create “;smoke.”; But the makers of the many brands of e-cigs claim the smoke is actually harmless water vapor and that the e-cigs contain none of the dangerous cancer-causing chemicals and substances that real cigarettes do.

As a result, these electronic cigarettes are not covered under anti-smoking laws that keep people from smoking in bars, restaurants and other public places. Proponents of these cyber cigarettes claim they can even be smoked in airplanes.

Now, just imagine how crazy this is going to make the rabid anti-smoking crowd. I suspect we will find out that not only are they against real smoking, they don't want even to be fake smoking. As soon as e-cigs take hold in Honolulu, look for all the hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing to begin as the City Council and state Legislature are beseeched by the self-appointed guardians of everybody else's health to ban even electronic cigarettes. Nevermind that that these pseudo coffin nails emit no second-hand smoke, the main reason for banning smoking real cigarettes in public.

The anti-smoking forces will claim that smoking electric cigarettes will lead our impressionable young to try real cigarettes, then marijuana and, inevitably, even more dangerous substances like heroin and McDonalds double-cheeseburgers.

  THE E-CIGS really are electronic. They have a rechargeable battery that goes inside the plastic cigarette, which actually is an atomizer. A plastic cartridge with a small amount of water, a certain amount of nicotine and some flavoring like “;tobacco, mint, cherry or cigar”; is inserted. When you suck in, a smoke-like vapor delivers the nicotine (there are nicotine-free cartridges, too) and you exhale what looks like smoke but is only harmless water vapor. As you inhale on the e-cig, an LED light on the tip glows like burning tobacco.

E-cigs already seem to be popular on the Internet, where many brands are available on Amazon.com. A basic startup kit contains an atomizer, batteries, battery charger, several nicotine/flavor cartridges and even a USB cable so you can recharge you robo-ciggie from your laptop computer.

For women, they've come a long way baby, offering a “;Lady Smoker”; designed “;for all the ladies who want to feel feminine again while you smoke.”;

Prices vary but work out to the equivalent of paying $5 for a pack of real cigarettes.

And E-cigarettes were invented in China, so you KNOW they gotta be safe.