Electronic Cigarettes
Electronic cigarettes are attracting the attention of numerous tobacco users across the United States. Also known as e-cigarettes or personal vaporizers, these new and novel devices are becoming an increasingly popular alternative to smoking traditional cigarettes.
Invented by a Chinese medicine practitioner in 2003, the electronic cigarette is a relatively simple device that mimics the sensation of traditional cigarettes without involving the tar, carcinogens, smoke or ash that are associated with smoking. By eliminating the inhalation and emission of harmful tobacco combustion products, e-cigarettes appear to greatly reduce the harmful health consequences of smoking.
The e-cigarette works by vaporizing a liquid nicotine solution and not by burning tobacco. Upon inhalation, the device produces a near odorless vapor that looks like smoke, but it is not a product of combustion. Since it is the smoke, not nicotine, that is the most deadly aspect of traditional cigarettes, the ability to get nicotine without smoke is an enormous health advantage for cigarette smokers.
Electronic cigarettes seem to have potential as an effective smoking cessation product, but that claim cannot legally be made as the device has not yet been through formal efficacy and safety tests at the FDA. In any event, advocates of electronic cigarettes believe this ingenious piece of technology gives addicted cigarette smokers a less harmful alternative.
