Mokeless, odorless, and, indeed, tobacco-less, electronic
cigarettes, or “e-cigarettes,” in common parlance, are projected to become a $1
billion industry this year. Yes, that’s “electronic” cigarettes:
battery-powered gadgets that convert liquid nicotine into vapor, which the user
inhales. The act is known—unfortunately, if accurately—as “vaping.” (It’s
important to note that one doesn’t smoke an e-cigarette.) Some e-cigs
are made to closely resemble actual cigarettes—they have the same shape and
color and even an LED light at the end, designed to simulate a lit butt. They
come in a variety of flavors.
While e-cigs may resemble traditional cigarettes in both
form (inhale, exhale) and function (the efficient delivery of nicotine),
they’re probably considerably healthier than traditional “cancer sticks.”
Research on e-cigs is still in its early stages, but they don’t contain many of
cigarettes’ most harmful substances, like carbon dioxide and tar. Nicotine
itself, moreover, is not a carcinogen. “Over the short term, e-cigarettes are
almost certainly less harmful than smoking cigarettes,” Tom Glynn, director of
the American Cancer Society’s International Cancer Control, has said.
Because vaping feels like smoking, e-cigs could also prove
to be more effective cessation aids than nicotine gum, lozenges, or patches.
Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health,
told the Los Angeles Times in early July, “I think that there is a lot
of evidence that these products are extremely helpful to many people in helping
them quit smoking.” A recent Italian study found that 13 percent of smokers who
tried e-cigarettes gave up traditional cigarettes; 70 percent of those
ultimately quit e-cigs as well. That’s a similar success rate to other methods
of tobacco cessation.
Patented in China in 2003, and on the market in Europe and
North America since 2006, e-cigs started slow, but have taken off in the past
couple of years, as taxes and restrictions on regular cigarettes have become
ever more draconian. One analyst with Wells Fargo foresees sales surpassing $10
billion by 2017. In parts of Europe, particularly France, they’re more popular
than in the States. Even in smallish French cities, like Toulouse (population
440,000), there are dozens of small stores that deal exclusively in e-cigs. (It
is hard to imagine Sartre sucking on an electronic cigarette, though.) And
although e-cigs only account for about 1 percent of the sales generated by
cigarettes, analysts see nothing but growth ahead. It’s little wonder that
tobacco giant Altria (the parent of Philip Morris USA)—if not literally
smelling an opportunity—has announced its intention to get into the market,
which has heretofore been dominated by smaller outfits.
The Food and Drug Administration, which has the power to
regulate e-cigs, has yet to announce rules for the product. But a backlash from
public health authorities at the state and local level has grown in concert
with e-cigs’ rising popularity just the same. One would think that the states
most keen to unplug e-cigarettes would be ones with the most to lose from their
rise; that is, states full of tobacco farmers, like Virginia and North
Carolina. But that’s not so. Instead, and seemingly paradoxically, it’s the
states with the most stringent regulations on cigarettes that have taken up the
anti-e-cigarette cause with abandon.
In California, for example, the state senate recently passed
a bill that would ban the use of e-cigarettes wherever cigarette smoking is
banned—which is just about everywhere in that famously anti-tobacco state.
Indeed, some California counties and towns have gone so far as to ban cigarette
smoking in private rental properties. And one of those, Contra Costa County,
recently added e-cigs to its smoking ban, meaning that, yep, it is illegal to
use an e-cigarette in a private apartment. Boston has a similar law banning
e-cigs wherever smoking is banned, as does King County, Washington, home of
Seattle. (Other states and localities have—reasonably—banned the sale of e-cigs
to minors.) It’s odd that the states and localities most dedicated to weaning their
populations off cigarettes would go after a potentially healthier alternative
so enthusiastically. And it’s even odder that e-cigarettes, which produce no
smoke, would be banned from public places, given that the ostensible rationale
for public smoking bans is to protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke.
Article Credit: http://www.weeklystandard.com
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