E-smokes gaining steam amid calls for a ban

RICHMOND, Va. — Galen Kipe hasn't smoked a cigarette in more than three months.

He couldn't kick his habit of 17 years with nicotine patches or gum. He finally put away his Marlboro menthols for good by swapping them for electronic cigarettes, which look like the real thing and give him his nicotine fix but do not contain tobacco.

"It's the closest thing to what I was doing before," the 34-year-old steelworker from Asheboro, N.C., said. "I'm still getting the nicotine, but I don't feel like I'm getting any kind of bad side effects. It can't be any worse than actual cigarettes."

As they become more popular, the battery-powered cigarettes have become the center of a fight over how risky they are compared with traditional smokes, whether they're legal and, if they are, how they should be regulated.

E-cigarettes are made of plastic and metal and heat a liquid nicotine solution in a disposable cartridge, creating vapor that the "smoker" inhales. A tiny light on the tip even glows like a real cigarette.

Nearly 46 million Americans smoke traditional cigarettes. About 40 percent try to quit cold turkey or with other nicotine replacements each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But unlike patches or gums, e-smokes operate in a legal gray area.

The Food and Drug Administration and public health groups have sounded the alarm, saying they contain dangerous chemicals and are being marketed to children, and the federal agency has halted shipments of e-cigarettes at ports nationwide.

Some sellers of e-cigarettes sued the FDA last year after the agency instructed customs officials to refuse entry of shipments into the U.S. A federal judge ruled that the FDA can't stop those shipments, saying the agency had overstepped its authority. The FDA appealed, and won a stay of that ruling, pending oral arguments that are set to begin next month.

The FDA claims it has the authority to regulate e-cigarettes as drug-delivery devices, which would require proving — probably through expensive clinical trials — that they are safe and effective as a stop-smoking aid.

E-cigarette sellers would like to see them regulated as a tobacco product, which would follow the same restrictions as traditional cigarettes and tobacco products.