NEW YORK – Is it a cessation device? A gateway device that encourages youth smoking? Is it a tobacco product? Well, the answer to any of those three questions largely depends on who you ask.

Writes CNN: “If the tiny sample of smokers in a new study in the British journal Lancet are any indication, electronic cigarettes might be slightly more effective than nicotine patches in helping people quit smoking…Except another new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests more children and teens are trying them…The implications of both these studies means electronic cigarettes have been getting a lot of attention lately.”

CNN suggests that the topic of electronic cigarettes among the medical community is as polarizing as health issues such as “sex education or diet sodas.”

Confusion aside, there are more than 30 exhibitors ready to showcase electronic cigarette products at the upcoming NACS Show in Atlanta, an expo product category created just this year. In 2010, there were a handful of electronic cigarette vendors at the NACS Show in Chicago. So for a product that’s only been on convenience store shelves for roughly 3 to 4 years, continued category growth for the c-store industry is likely.

Boon or Bad News?
CNN writes that one physician, Dr. Michael Siegel, who has spent the last 20 years focusing on tobacco-control initiatives is surprised by the negative reaction toward electronic cigarettes. Studies that he’s conducted suggest that the devices are actually helpful.

“True we don't know the long-term health effect of e-cigarettes, but there's a very good likelihood that smokers are going to get lung cancer if they don't quit smoking," he told the news source, adding, "If they can switch to these and quit smoking traditional cigarettes, why condemn them?"

Siegel also suggests that because the devices mirror regular cigarette smoking, they draw an initial negative reaction from anti-smoking groups. He also doesn’t support the urgent need for more regulations.

“It's ironic the very thing that makes them so effective ... drives the anti-smoking groups crazy. But what makes them so effective is it mimics the physical behaviors smokers have, which is something the [nicotine] patch can't do."

Ray Story, founder of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association, agrees with Siegel, but also told CNN that his association supports age verification for the devices.

"When you have these companies trying to promote these as something they are not, and you have stores that sell them in the candy aisle, you are going to have a problem," Story told the news source, adding, "If they are officially categorized as a tobacco product, you get an automatic age verification put in place…Nicotine is addictive, and we want the federal government to create guidelines and a structure that will confine these to being sold as adult products."

History Lesson
Hon Lik, a Chinese pharmacist and former 3-packs-a-day smoker, is credited with developing the electronic cigarette. The device was first introduced to the Chinese domestic market in May 2004 as an aid for smoking cessation and replacement, according to Wikipedia. The company Hon Lik worked for, Golden Dragon Holdings, changed its name to Ruyan (translation: "Resembling Smoking") and began exporting its products in 2005–2006 before receiving its first international patent in 2007. The rest, as they say, is history.

Government Intervention
In the United States, the FDA classified electronic cigarettes as drug delivery devices in 2010, but that classification was challenged and subsequently overruled.

Without federal regulation, some states, such as Illinois, have implemented their own policies that prevent the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors. New York City Mayor Bloomberg has hinted at an outright display ban. The We Card program, now in its 18th year, is educating retailers nationwide about state laws that restrict electronic-cigarette sales to minors.

Electronic cigarettes are also becoming a controversial workplace issue, according to Jim Evans, president of JK Evans & Associates LLC, a human resource consulting firm: “If not already, these devices will soon be coming to your workplace, and they will test the limits of your smoking policy,” Evans said. “If you’re an employer or human resources professional trying to stay ahead of the curve, it’s time to consider your organization’s position on the devices.”

Read more about electronic cigarettes in a NACS Magazine feature, “Vapor Pressure.”