The Philippine Online Chronicles

Tobacco-free and battery-powered electronic cigarettes are gaining popularity in the United States, where economic pressure – steep tax increases and the economic downturn - reduced the number of smokers by 10 percent in 2009.

“Both taxes and diminished income are playing a big role in declining sales of tobacco, and the nation is going to be healthier for it,’’ said Gregory Connolly, Tobacco Control Research Program director at Harvard School of Public Health.

The e-cigarette

Don Johnson, Tobacco World owner and seller of an e-cigagarette brand, said that an electronic cigarette or e-cigarette mimics the look and feel of a regular cigarette, releasing a nicotine vapor to satisfy the smokers craving minus the bad side effects, KSMU radio reports.

“There is no second hand smoke at all, it’s water vapor that’s all it is,” said Johnson, adding that smokers are using e-cigarettes like other nicotine subtitutes such as patches and gum, to help them quit.

The e-cigarettes are unregulated throughout the country and sold openly in malls and on the internet. A federal judge had ruled against regulation since they are only alternatives to regular cigarettes.

Legislators are seeking expand current smoking laws and prohibit the sale of e-cigarettes to minors.

Too good to be true?

“The Food and Drug Administration has done some preliminary testing on these products, and has found that there are carcinogens and toxic chemicals that are being emitted from the vapors that do come from the end of an electronic cigarette,”  said Katie Towns-Jeter of Greene County Health Department in Missouri.

Tenessee Department of Health Communications Director Andrea Turner adds, “The question is, ‘Are those carcinogens being emitted through that vapor?’“

A study by the Virginia Commonwealth University and supported by the National Cancer Institute stressed evaluation of and regulation of the e-cigarettes which they found to deliver “no measurable nicotine at all.”

“Consumers have a right to expect that products marketed to deliver a drug will work safely and as promised,” researchers said.

An analysis by Time Magazine opines that while health benefits of quitting smoking cannot be oversold, it’s best to turn to other alternatives.