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All Of The Buzz, None Of The Smoke

A slim salesman leaned back against a Westfield Annapolis mall kiosk last week, took a draw on what looked to be a cigarette and exhaled a plume toward the rafters.That's the sales pitch: Smoke this cigarette anywhere because it's not really a cigarette and there's really no smoke.

Meet the electronic cigarette. It has all of the nicotine and none of the tar or cancerous side effects from tobacco.

The little devices emit a vapor of nicotine and have been finding their way into mall kiosks across the country during the past year. Marketed as a healthier way to smoke, the electronic cigarette has both intrigued smokers and furrowed the brows of health experts.

The small metal tube is designed to have the look and feel of a real cigarette, but costs about $140. It can be reloaded with varying concentrations of liquid nicotine, which is converted into a mist when the "smoker" sucks air through the device.

Boosters said it is a safe alternative to smoking cigarettes cigarettes and a good tool to help smokers quit.

"I smoke, and this is bizarre," Tim, a 36-year-old from Columbia who declined to give his last name, said after he tried out an "e-cigarette" at the mall. "The thing that's weird is now I want to go smoke cigarettes a real cigarette. There's the sensation there, and the euphoria is there, but you don't quite get the same experience."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved the sale of the devices, and this week came under pressure from federal lawmakers to halt sales of electronic cigarettes.

FDA spokeswoman Rita Chappelle said in a statement that the agency considers electronic cheap smokes a new drug and it is illegal to market them without FDA approval. She added that the FDA is not aware of any comprehensive study assessing the health risks of the product, and retailers could face "enforcement."

Scores of companies have popped up across the Internet selling the electronic cigarette, which was developed in China and has been available internationally for some time. A franchise operation of Smoking Everywhere opened a kiosk in the Annapolis mall about seven months ago, business owner Amit Fridman said.

"We had been developing it for more than a year, and it's a good product," Fridman said. "I wanted to help people to quit."

The kiosk has a narrated video, an array of e-cigarettes in different shapes and sizes for consumers to try, plus a pamphlet promising smokers "a chance of smoking cigarettes in a much healthier way and the freedom to smoke cigarettes everywhere. The smokers still get their nicotine, but don't get any harmful side effects of smoking cigarettes traditional cigarettes which contains real tobacco and tar."

When a person inhales while smoking cigarettes an e-cigarette, a detector registers the air movement and triggers a little heater that instantly vaporizes a small amount of liquid nicotine inside. The cigarette-shaped device even has a red LED light in the tip that glows just like a real cigarette.

Retailers said the nicotine mist is safe, has no effect on bystanders, and can be made in diminishing doses to help smokers gradually kick the nicotine habit. The liquid nicotine also comes in a variety of flavors, from tobacco to cherry, and retailers said the e-cigarette is not subject to indoor-smoking cigarettes bans.

Jinlene Chan, acting deputy officer of public health for the county Health Department, said the electronic buy cigarettes are too new to have a body of research about their health effects. But even without testing of this particular product, Chan warned the marketing of electronic cheap cigarettes both at kiosks and on the Internet is misleading.

"I would disagree that it is healthy in any way," Chan said. "Nicotine in and of itself can cause health risks. ... If you're a nonsmoker, the risk of addiction is something that will stay with you for a lifetime."

The electronic cigarette has no tar, carbon monoxide or smoke cigarettes that is linked to lung cancer from cigarettes. But Chan said nicotine causes damage to the cardiovascular system and there is no evidence that electronic cigarettes do not have any secondhand smoke cigarettes effects.

"Nicotine is extremely addictive, and if addiction is healthy, then I don't know what healthy is," Chan said. "The healthiest way to smoke cigarettes is to not smoke cigarettes at all."

Kathleen Dachille, director the Legal Resource Center for Tobacco Regulation, Litigation and Advocacy at the University of Maryland, said companies have already begun calling her center, asking whether they can outlaw the e-cigarettes.

"As a business owner you have the right to say, 'No, you can't smoke cigarettes that product,' " Dachille said.

Since they contain no tobacco, the e-cigarettes are not subject to smoking cigarettes bans or laws prohibiting sales to minors.

"There's no age restriction," Dachille said. "You could give it to a 5-year-old."

Other cigarettes news and tobacco market events you can find at links bellow:

   • Cigarettes Online News

   • CigarettesPro.com Tobacco News

   • CigarettesOn.Com Tobacco News





The term cigarettes, as normally employed, refers to a tobacco cigarette, but can be utilized like devices holding in other herbaceous plants, such as eugenia caryophyllatums. A cigarette is differentiated from a cigar by its modest sizing, utilization of treated leafage, and paper wrap, which is usually white hot, though other coloring materials are sometimes usable. Cigars are mostly compiled totally of whole-leaf tobacco plant.

Rates of cheap smokes changes widely, and have altered substantially over the course of human history since cigarettes were 1st wide used in the mid-19th century. While rates of smoke have over time leveled off or turned down in the highly developed world, they continue to up-rise in evolving states. Nicotine, the main psychotropic chemical substance in baccy and therefore cigarettes, has been shown to be psychologically habit forming, although it does not generate a physiologic addiction.

Cheap cigarettes usage by pregnant women has also been shown to stimulate birth defects, including mental and physical disabilities.