E-smokes gaining steam amid calls for ban

Virtual puff

He couldn’t kick his habit of 17 years with nicotine patches or gum. He finally put away his Marlboro menthols for good by swapping them for electronic cigarettes, which look like the real thing and give him his nicotine fix but do not contain tobacco.

“It’s the closest thing to what I was doing before,” the 34-year-old steelworker said. “I’m still getting the nicotine, but I don’t feel like I’m getting any kind of bad side effects. It can’t be any worse than actual cigarettes.”

As they become more popular, the battery-powered cigarettes have become the centre of a fight over how risky they are compared with traditional smokes, whether they’re legal and, if they are, how they should be regulated.

E-cigarettes are made of plastic and metal and heat a liquid nicotine solution in a disposable cartridge, creating vapour that the “smoker” inhales. A tiny light on the tip even glows like a real cigarette.

Nearly 46 million Americans smoke traditional cigarettes. About 40 per cent try to quit cold turkey or with other nicotine replacements each year.

Alarm

The Food and Drug Administration and public health groups have sounded the alarm, saying they contain dangerous chemicals and are being marketed to children, and the federal agency has halted shipments of e-cigarettes at ports nationwide.

Users and distributors say e-cigarettes address both the nicotine addiction and the behavioural aspects of smoking — the holding of the cigarette, the puffing, seeing the smoke come out and the hand motion — without the more than 4,000 chemicals found in a traditional cigarette.

First marketed worldwide in 2002 as an alternative to regular cigarettes, e-cigarettes didn’t become easily available in the US until late 2006. Now, the industry has grown from the thousands in 2006 to several million worldwide, with estimated 20,000 to 30,000 new e-smokers every week, according to Healy, whose company is expected to have $30 million in sales this year.