Study: 'Electronic cigarettes' don't deliver

By Paul Courson, CNN
February 8, 2010 7:55 p.m. EST

Washington (CNN) -- "Electronic cigarettes" that vaporize nicotine juice to inhale instead of smoke from burning tobacco do not deliver as promised, according to research at Virginia Commonwealth University.

"They are as effective at nicotine delivery as puffing on an unlit cigarette," said Dr. Thomas Eissenberg, at the school's Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies.

His study, funded by the federal National Cancer Institute, is the first by American doctors to check the function of so-called "no-smoke tobacco" devices, which are unregulated in the United States for sale or use.

The units are shaped like a cigarette and contain a battery that heats a filament to vaporize liquid nicotine in a refillable cartridge. Smokers buy the devices to get around no-smoking restrictions and to attempt to quit conventional cigarettes.

Some users nickname what they're doing as "vaping" instead of smoking, to reflect the vapor produced by the heating element. The devices are marketed as an alternative to smoking, but retailers avoid making claims about health or safety.

Fans have established a Web site, E-Cigarette Forum. Founder Oliver Kershaw said the site "is the largest e-smokers community online with some 26,000 members, most of whom are in the U.S."

Jimi Jackson, a former tobacco smoker in Richmond, Virginia, who sells electronic cigarettes, is convinced there are immediate health advantages in avoiding the known cancer-causing substances in the smoke of a burning cigarette.

"I smoked 37 years, and when I found them, I was, like, 'Thank, you Jesus,' " Jackson said with a laugh, as a reporter visited his shop, No Smoke Virginia, coincidentally just a few blocks from where the research was conducted at Virginia Commonwealth.



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