Recently Japan Tobacco Inc. (JT) and the state were successful in their defense against a damages suit in which three people had sought ¥10 million each for health problems — cancer and pulmonary emphysema — allegedly caused by smoking. Still, the Jan. 20 Yokohama District Court ruling, which the plaintiffs appealed Feb. 1, includes points that JT and the government should seriously consider.

The ruling covered the period from 1947 to 1993, when the three smoked. (One is already dead.) Dismissing the compensation requests, the ruling said it is difficult to conclude that JT was aware during that period that an unspecified large number of people would suffer from tobacco-related diseases and die.

It cited facts advantageous to JT: that, like consumption of alcohol, smoking is a voluntary decision; that the tobacco package warns users to “Be careful about smoking too much;” and that JT’s position as a tobacco products producer has legal backing.

But it said smoking is a leading cause of cancer and increases the risk of pulmonary emphysema. The ruling added that smoking dependence should never be made light of — a stronger assertion than a 2006 Supreme Court ruling, which said smoking dependence is weaker than alcohol dependence.

The court almost acknowledged illegality on the part of JT. It said the fact that the company continued production and sale of tobacco products while aware that smoking causes health problems and dependence cannot help being considered a factor in building the foundation of a case for illegality.

The ruling’s additional statement says the public should discuss what to do about tobacco production and sales, and that the Diet should make a final decision on the matter after taking into consideration the fact that knowledge of smoking’s effects has deepened and policy measures to promote public health have progressed since 1993.

The government has decided to raise the tobacco tax and abolish the tobacco business law. It and the Diet should quickly act in the belief that reducing smoking will improve people’s health and thus help cut the nation’s medical expenses.

The Japan Times

An informal survey indicates that although some local business owners have concerns regarding Fresh Air Fulton’s proposal to ban smoking in Fulton businesses, at least some residents don’t think such a move would be a bad idea.

Of 489 respondents to an online poll conducted by The Fulton Sun asking if patrons would take their business elsewhere if they weren’t able to smoke in Fulton businesses — including restaurants and bars — only 137, or 28 percent, clicked yes.

The results of a man-on-the-street survey on the streets of Fulton Saturday afternoon produced similar results. Of the 11 people we spoke with, only three said they were opposed to the ban.

“I guess I’m for it because I don’t like being around smoking,” said Polly Clark of Fulton. “The only businesses I see it affecting is bars and I don’t care about them.”

Ron Fansler of Auxvasse agreed that not having to deal with smoking at Fulton restaurants would be an improvement, although he had more concern for the bars than Clark.

“I think it’s a great idea. Even a little smoke bothers people — It bothers me,” Fansler said. “I don’t know if I agree with it to be banned in bars.”

Like Clark, he didn’t think it would have much affect on restaurants and other businesses, noting “I wouldn’t think people would go other places. If you can’t smoke at all of them it would be the same there.”

Mike Henry, Fulton: “I don’t have a problem with it. Some of the bars and stuff, I could see how it would affect them.”

T.C. Carter, Fulton, smoker: “I don’t have a problem with it. Everybody doesn’t smoke, and (second-hand smoke) isn’t good for them. How many businesses actually have smoking in their place anyway? I think the only place (that would have a problem) would be the bars. It wouldn’t stop me from going someplace, and I’m a smoker.”

Pamela McKinnon, Columbia: “I think they should ban smoking because I’m a non-smoker.”

Teddy McKinnon, Fulton, smoker: “Columbia did it, so why not. Really I don’t have a problem with smoking outside if they have a balcony or a covered area. Yes (I would go someplace else if I knew I could smoke there).”

Mary Moore, Auxvasse: “It would suit me fine because I’m a non-smoker. I think probably the bars are the only ones (that would be affected), I know some of the bars in Columbia had to close. I have mixed emotions because you have non-smoking areas in most restaurants.”

By KATHERINE CUMMINS and JOSHUA VINCE, The Fulton Sun

Smokers’ rights groups and civil liberties advocates say the trend toward not hiring smokers in Ohio is discriminatory and could lead to bans against hiring others at risk of missing work.

“What about women of childbearing age? Will they be next?” said Pam Parker, co-founder of Opponents of Ohio Bans. “If tobacco were illegal, I would be totally behind what these companies are doing, but it’s not.”

Parker’s group and others are backing a bill to be introduced soon into the Ohio legislature by State Rep. Stephen Dyer, D-Green, that would make it illegal to refuse to hire people who use tobacco products outside the workplace.

“While I applaud the idea of a drug-free workplace, a ban on tobacco redefines the concept,” Dyer said.

Thirty states and the District of Columbia have made it illegal for employers to make employment decisions based on off-duty smoking. Two states — California and Connecticut — prohibit discrimination on the basis of all legal behavior.

While the American Civil Liberties Union is opposed to nicotine-free hiring policies, Ohio’s “employment at will” laws prevent the organization from doing anything about it, said Mike Brickner, a spokesman for the ACLU in Ohio.

“We have always taken the position that employers should not have the right to regulate outside-employment activities, but Ohio employers have such huge leeway under the law” it’s no use fighting it in court, he said.

Premier Health Partners, the parent of Miami Valley and Good Samaritan Hospitals, has taken the toughest stand against tobacco thus far in the Dayton area. This year, it began assessing an annual $520 surcharge on health care benefits for employees who admit to smoking or chewing tobacco, lighting up cigars, or living in a household where others smoke.

Premier does not test employees for tobacco use.

At Kettering Health Network facilities, including Kettering and Grandview medical centers, employees are not permitted to smoke during breaks, even if they’re off campus, because they’ll return to work smelling of tobacco, said Leslie Grooms, Kettering’s network director of compensation and benefits.

The no-smoking, no-smell policy is for the safety and comfort of their patients, she said. Just the smell of cigarette smoke “could cause a negative reaction in asthma patients” and others with lung conditions, she said. “And, certainly, it’s not something you want around newborns.”

Smoking has been on the decline in Ohio since 1995, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Back then, about one in four Ohio adults were smokers (26 percent). Today, the proportion is fewer than one in five (18 percent).

With health insurance costs continuing to climb when employers are also being squeezed by a recession, smokers may be just the first targets of insurance-driven hiring policies, said Mary White, a professor of ethics at Wright State’s Boonshoft School of Medicine.

Similar policies based “on aging, on weight, on whatever criteria they choose (to lower their insurance costs) might be considered,” she said.

“If we’re content to deny health care coverage to one of every six people in this country, we’ll just let it keep going” to ever larger categories of people, she said.

By Jim DeBrosse, Daytondailynews

EARLIER THIS month, a 57-year-old businessman was convicted of involvement in a massive smuggling operation that was uncovered when 7.3 million cigarettes were seized in Dublin Port in January 2006.

But the court in which Roman Vidal received a two-year sentence was not in Dublin or any other Irish city. Instead, he was convicted by magistrates near his home in Miami, Florida, and ordered to pay more than $1.5 million in restitution.

Vidal was the linchpin in a vast smuggling network that spanned three continents and saw cigarettes sourced in the Canaries, shipped to Panama and then transported back to Europe via Miami. His case reveals the extent of cigarette smuggling and the depth of involvement in the trade by criminal gangs here.

Vidal never even had to leave home to do his work. His contraband arrived in 730 cases inside a 15-metre metal shipping container, which was stacked among hundreds of others in Miami port. His contact was in Spain and the money to fund the operation was wired from a Portuguese bank into his account. Once the Dublin end of the operation gave the nod, the smuggling operation was ready to begin.

Vidal bought a load of cheap wood flooring, which he loaded on top of the cigarettes, before sending the container on its way across the Atlantic. The bill of landing falsely described the load as flooring and duties of just € 2,900 were paid to Irish Customs when the load arrived in Dublin some weeks later; the real amount due for the cigarettes should have been €1,550,461.20.

Irish Customs officers had been watching traffic from Miami since 2002, when they seized 16 million cigarettes in a container sent from the US port. “Up to then, all our attention was on the Middle East and the Far East, but after this we started looking at other traffic,” says Dave Godwin, head of the Customs Service.

By the time Vidal’s contraband arrived, officers knew what was afoot and allowed the container to pass through Dublin Port. A haulier took the load up to the Border where it was deposited but left uncollected after the Irish end of the operation got cold feet.

The kingpin behind this operation is a leading criminal who has served time in prison and the proceeds were intended for use by dissident Republican groups, according to security sources. He remains at large.

The case is one of many in recent years involving the seizure of vast loads of black-market cigarettes, but it is also typical in that no one in Ireland has been charged with involvement. Securing a conviction is difficult because it can be hard to prove those moving the contraband were aware of the contents of their lorry, boat or container. And even when convictions are secured, the courts are inclined towards leniency, according to investigators. “Unless we get the guys at the top, the view is that they won’t hit people with significant sentences,” says one source. In 2008, for example, Fermanagh man Alan Davenport got a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence after he was stopped while driving a trailer carrying more than three million cigarettes. Another suspended sentence was handed out to a man found carrying three-quarters of a ton of roll-your-own tobacco. A number of cases in relation to high-volume tobacco smuggling are with the DPP.

European figures confirm claims that Ireland is awash with smuggled cigarettes. About 25 per cent of cigarettes consumers here are imported illegally, compared to 6 per cent in Norway, 3 per cent in France, 2 per cent in Spain and 1 per cent in New Zealand. Both Spain and New Zealand have taken concerted measures in recent years to tackle the problem, but here in Ireland, where less has been done, smuggling continues to rise.

One of the attractions of cigarette smuggling vis-a-vis other forms of smuggling is the low level of punishment it attracts. Most of the names that appear twice yearly on the Revenue defaulters’ list in relation to tobacco-related offences are small-time sellers or importers of cigarettes. Some 163 people were convicted in the courts last year, and 33 of these received custodial sentences. But only 14 of these actually served time while 19 were given suspended sentences. Another seven smugglers were told to do community service.

Health groups also claim the tobacco industry is complicit in smuggling, arguing that the companies involved have a vested interest in promoting their product, regardless of whether duty has been paid.

Internationally, some of the world’s biggest tobacco companies have been implicated in smuggling, and expensive settlements have been reached with the EU. In Ireland, the industry denies any involvement with smuggling and is prominent in campaigning for a clampdown on counterfeit cigarettes.

Some of the big companies are liable to make seizure payments to the exchequer if their cigarettes are found to have been smuggled without tax stamps, but the last time this happened was in 2006.

Irishtimes

Valley smokers are incensed at two congressional Democrats’ proposal to increase the tax on pipe tobacco a whopping 775 percent.

Ron Rothermel, of Sunbury, is among Valley pipe smokers outraged by the plan to raise the tax from $2.8311 per pound to $24.78 per pound — the same rate that is imposed on roll-your-own tobacco products.

Many Valley smokers saw an opportunity to save money by buying special blends of pipe tobacco to make their own cigarettes after a higher roll-your-own tobacco products tax took effect last year.

“I smoke cigarettes and occasionally pipes,” Rothermel said. “I wish I hadn’t started smoking, but I did, and I resent the government’s actions. I feel they are picking on a certain class of people and taxing that class. The proposed tax is ridiculously high. It certainly could affect whether I buy pipe tobacco in the future.

“If this tax passes,” he fumed, “what’s next? Since excessive intake of sugar is unhealthy and leads to obesity, will they tax sugar? And what about fried foods? Are they going to tax french fries?”

Where is it all going to stop? Rothermel asked.

The widespread anger is a reaction to House Resolution 4439, or the Tobacco Tax Parity Act of 2010, introduced by U.S. Reps. Steve Cohen, of Tennesee, and Lloyd Doggett, of Texas.

Cohen, reached Friday in Washington, D.C., said the idea for his bill originated last year, after passage of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization Bill, which increased tobacco taxes to provide tens of millions of America’s children with health insurance.

Since its creation in 1997, CHIP has been funded through revenue generated by federal tobacco taxes.

As part of the CHIP law, roll-your-own tobacco is taxed at a $1.54 an ounce, while pipe tobacco — the exact same product — is taxed at 17 cents an ounce, Cohen said.

“Higher cigarette taxes have proven to be an effective way to discourage children from smoking,” Cohen said. “However, it was only weeks after President Obama signed the Children’s Health Insurance Program into law that the tobacco industry figured out a way to exploit a loophole in the bill that endangers the health of children.

“Roll-your-own tobacco has historically been a small part of the cigarette industry,” Cohen said, but “the exploitation of this loophole enabled roll-your-own tobacco to capture an increasingly large portion of the market. Further exploitation of this loophole has the potential to cost the government more than $30 million a month in lost revenue.”

Instead of folding in the face of high taxes, tobacco companies quickly responded to the roll-your-own tax increase by all but shutting down those brands and reinventing them under a less-taxed category — pipe tobacco.

The tax? About a tenth of roll-your-own tobacco, at $2.83 per pound.
Smokers of pipes and cigarettes responded by buying up pipe tobacco.

Roll-your-own brands disappeared overnight, replaced with pipe tobacco brands carrying the same names.

Tobacco companies on their Web sites said they were just trying to find a legal way to stay afloat after being saddled with an enormous tax increase.

This, Cohen said, is why he introduced the bill, which is now in the House Ways and Means Committee.

House Resolution 4439 has not yet been scheduled for a floor vote, and may not be, said Josh Drobnyk, an aide to U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, D-10, of Dimock.

After all, there is only one co-sponsor.

Of the legislation, Carney said: “I am focused on measures that will improve our economy and ease — not increase — the tax burden on our working families during these tough economic times.”

The tax burden is the point of contention, pipe tobacco users said.

If the bill passes, taxes on tobacco — sold both by the gram and by the ounce — would rise to:

n $2.43 per 50 grams

n $2.74 per 2 ounces

n $4.86 per 100 grams

n $10.98 per 8 ounces

n $24.78 per 16 ounces

These costs would be in addition to the price pipe smokers pay for those amounts of pipe tobacco. For example, with the average price of a 100-gram tin of McClelland Frog Morton about $13.20, the new price would be $18.06.

Government manipulating us, smokers charge

Buck Reibsame, of Selinsgrove, is steamed about the proposed hikes, as are many of his friends.

“I wouldn’t mind a fair tax, with maybe a 6 to 7 percent hike, but this one, if passed, would be outrageous,” he said Thursday.

“I’ve been smoking for about 40 years and I’ve never seen such an attack on a group of people like this one. If those politicians want to do something to raise revenues, how about cutting back on their perks?”

The government, added long-time smoker Jon McLaughlin, of Selinsgrove, is trying to legislate how he lives through tax manipulation.

“Last year they went after roll-your-own smokers,” said McLaughlin, a smoker for 41 years. “This year, they’re going after anything and everyone. It’s just about raising money. It’s always about money.”

What and who is to benefit from the tax increase? asked Bill Jennings, of Lewisburg.

“Don’t people in Congress have much more important things to worry about? And what could possibly be their justification for a tax amount of $24.78 per pound on something that often doesn’t cost that much to begin with?” he asked, and paused for a second. “Oh yeah, I get it. This tax is intended to make it so only the wealthiest can smoke pipes. Well how about that? Come on legislators. Be serious.”

Jennifer, a worker at a local smoke shop, who asked that her surname not be used, said she switched to pipe tobacco, instead of roll-you-own, and began rolling it into cigarettes. “The price was worth it,” she said. “And taste-wise, I didn’t find much difference.”

Now, she may have no choice but to pay higher prices.

Pipe tobacco is nominally coarser and somewhat moister than most blends of cigarette tobacco. But there are no regulations that say it has to be that way. The federal government says the only difference between the two is how the two tobaccos are labeled.

“The bill punishes pipe smokers and retail tobacconists,” said Jonah Johnstone, a smoker from Selinsgrove. Johnstone thinks this is nothing more than an attempt to rope in more taxes from roll-your-own cigarette tobacco re-labeled as pipe tobacco.

A tax increase of 775 percent on anything is ludicrous, Johnstone said.
“It could conceivably destroy an industry of pipe craftsmen, small farmers, tobacco blenders and retailers.”

A heavy hit for retailers and producers

“If this law passes, it could hurt out business a lot,” said Michelle Longenberger, an employee at Puff Discount, in Sunbury.

Pipe tobacco represents 30 to 40 percent of the shop’s business, Longenberger said.

“We sell everything from small pouches of tobacco, for 94 cents, to larger cans, for $16. Most customers who buy are simply rolling their own cigarettes. It’s what I do. You can roll a fair number for less than $2 total. Of course, that would all change if taxes were raised to the proposed levels.

“I really hope the bill doesn’t pass.”

By Rick Dandes, Dailyitem

My proudest moment as state health commissioner was sitting beside Gov. Frank O’Bannon as he signed Indiana’s historic 1999 tobacco settlement legislation and handed me the pen.

This legislation, Indiana’s greatest public health achievement, created the Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Agency to administer a comprehensive tobacco-prevention program with funding adequate to meet CDC-recommended guidelines.

During the settlement legislation deliberations, I was asked if I wanted the program placed at the Indiana State Department of Health. Although tobacco control was my top priority, I supported locating it in an independent agency with a governing board to preserve its focus, to maintain some measure of separation from gubernatorial control, and to insulate it from the capriciousness of politics and tobacco-industry influence.

SB298 contains a provision that would abolish ITPC, move this independent program and its funding to the ISDH, terminate its 14 staff positions, and dissolve its 22-member volunteer executive board that includes tobacco control experts and public health professionals.

Passed by the Senate and now under consideration in the House, it is most likely headed for conference committee.

This legislation would save about $1 million yearly in administrative costs mostly by eliminating all of the staff positions. Moving it to the ISDH may sound like a good governmental-consolidation plan, but as their former head, I can assure you that it isn’t.

ISDH staffing is already marginal and there is no one there to administrate a meaningful program. It will be given to a few individuals with other full-time responsibilities and little or no expertise in tobacco prevention. It will become a backwater ineffectual program with its funding eventually raided for other uses. Although ISDH officials publicly say they can efficiently administer the program, privately they admit they lack the necessary personnel and the capacity to work with local communities. It is going there to die. The same scenario occurred in Mississippi and Ohio. Their programs have since withered.

Over the past 10 years the agency has received $137 million, nearly half of that appropriated in the first three years. Unfortunately, funding was brutally cut in 2004. The current annual appropriation is now only $10.8 million (Indiana’s CDC-recommended annual amount is $78.8 million) despite Indiana receiving an average of $150 million from the settlement yearly. Meanwhile, the tobacco industry spends $426 million annually in Indiana to promote their products.

Despite insufficient funding, ITPC has produced impressive results. Although the smoking rate has dropped only modestly for adults 25 and older, the smoking declines in Hoosier children have been astonishing and far greater than the national downward trend. Between 2000 and 2008, smoking declined 42 percent among high school students and 58 percent among middle school students.

These decreases cannot be adequately explained by the relatively modest increase in the state cigarette tax or the enactment of smoke-free laws.

States with functional tobacco-control programs have the greatest declines in smoking. Beyond the numbers, the agency has benefited the state’s tobacco-control efforts in many ways, including serving as the catalyst for local community organization necessary for enactment of smoke-free ordinances. And tobacco prevention is a wise investment. Tobacco costs Indiana $3.5 billion annually in health-care costs and business-related expenses. Each tobacco-prevention dollar spent reduces that bill by up to $7.

Indiana now ranks second-highest in adult smoking. Indiana should not only increase tobacco-control funding but also retain ITPC, a wisely-designed nationally-acclaimed independent agency with the expertise to deliver CDC evidenced-based tobacco-prevention and cessation programs.

In one of the unhealthiest states in the nation, it is shameful, unconscionable and short-sighted to do otherwise. If this agency is dismantled, a future of more death and disease from increased smoking awaits Hoosier children.

The Obama administration wants the Supreme Court to allow the government to seek nearly $300-billion from the tobacco industry due to a half century of deception. We spoke with a local tobacco farmer about this issue and what might happen if the government gets the money.

The Obama administration wants the Supreme Court to allow the government to seek nearly $300-billion from the tobacco industry due to a half century of deception.
We spoke with a local tobacco farmer about this issue and what might happen if the government gets the money.

“As far as the 50 states, Kentucky ranks the highest in tobacco production, and if something like this were to happen, there’d be many families affected by this,” said Joel Cook, a local tobacco farmer from Simpson County.

Cook just recently sold the last of his tobacco crop, and he’ll start replanting mid-March to once again start the year-long process of growing tobacco.

“As a tobacco farmer, I’d have to strongly stand against that,” said Cook. “It sounds like they’re just trying to take the money away from the tobacco industry for the well-being of others, and I don’t think the tobacco industry should be penalized for anything that’s happened in the past.”

The government says the industry has cost millions of Americans their health and lives.

“Everybody’s aware of the health risks,” said Cook. “It’s on every pack of cigarettes. Smoking is a hazard to your health.”

If the government receives the money, Cook says it would poorly affect the industry which is already going through a crucial time.

“As a burley tobacco farmer, I’m seeing a decrease in the amount of pounds I’m able to grow in this current coming year,” said Cook. “I feel that if the tobacco industry is struck by anything like this, it could really take effect on the tobacco farmer.”

Cook, being one of those farmers, says there may be other crops or cattle he could fall back on.

“There are areas to increase so I can rely on that for my income, but as of right now, tobacco is very critical to my income and putting food on the table for my family,” said Cook.

The decade-long fight went to the high court this past Friday.

While the government wants $300-billion, leading tobacco companies want the court to throw out rulings holding that the industry illegally concealed the dangers of cigarette smoking.

By Lacey Steele, Wbko

A new study by a national anti-smoking group argues that states could raise more than $9 billion in new revenues if they all hiked cigarette taxes by $1-a-pack.

A new study by a national anti-smoking group argues that states could raise more than $9 billion in new revenues if they all hiked cigarette taxes by $1-a-pack. The levy wouldn’t come close to balancing recession-ruined state budgets, but it wouldn’t hurt. And, the group says, the higher tax would keep 2.3 million kids from becoming smokers and convince 1.2 million adults to quit, saving one million lives and $52 billion in health costs over the long-run. The study comes from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.Sin taxes like this are always a two-edged sword. If government wants to maximize revenue, it can’t impose a tax so high that it will discourage too many sinners. On the other hand, if the goal is to discourage the sin, the state would want to maximize the tax rate–or flat ban the activity. Trouble is, if everyone quit smoking or drinking, revenues would eventually dry up.

Two more issues to consider: Very high taxes will encourage smuggling, Internet purchases, and—if neighboring states don’t raise their taxes too–a quick drive across the border to stock up on smokes. Finally, some economists worry that tobacco taxes unfairly target the poor.

The tobacco-free kids study assumes that every state raises its tax by $1-a-pack. And it recognizes that demand for cigarettes is relatively inelastic—even high taxes won’t discourage many addicted smokers to quit. The paper assumes that a 10 percent tax increase would reduce overall consumption by about 4 percent, and youth smoking rates by 6.5 percent. It also recognizes that higher taxes will increase tax avoidance.

Still, the paper finds that a big tax hike would generate significant state revenues, although the bang for the buck might vary from state to state. It found, for instance, that when Texas raised its tax from 41 cents to $1.41 in 2007, the number of packs sold dropped by 21 percent in the following year, but tobacco tax revenues rose by nearly 200 percent. South Dakota also raised its tax by $1 in 2007, and saw consumption fall by one-quarter and revenues double. In Maine, a $1 tax increase in September, 2005 generated 75 percent higher revenues—perhaps because it was much easier for people to get their cigarettes in New Hampshire, where the tax was much lower ( 80 cents in 2006 vs. $2).

Nonetheless, the paper argues that in every state, higher tax rates more than make up for lower consumption (either less smoking or more purchases somewhere else) and would generate more revenue. And an accompanying poll suggests a tobacco tax would be quite popular.

In a TaxVox post last summer, Ruth Levine looked at the avoidance problem with city-level sin taxes. It is probably less of an issue with states, and the paper suggests people are less likely to take the trouble to avoid the tax over time, due in part to what it calls “smoker tax-evasion fatigue.” Still, this is a matter of some concern.

There are two other problems worth thinking about: Some states that have securitized their tobacco settlement money may receive less income from these deals if their cigarette sales fall. So, while their tax revenues may rise, lower demand may temper their overall revenue benefits. In addition, states such as New Jersey that already have very high cigarette taxes may not see as big a revenue boost from a further increase.

My colleague at TPC, Kim Rueben, suggests a solution: Increase the federal tobacco tax and rebate some of the money to states. But whatever the design, it is hard to argue with a tax that raises revenue, reduces smoking, or perhaps does at least a little bit of both.

By Howard Gleckman, Csmonitor

COLUMBIA — In the era of e-everything, it’s no great surprise there is now an e-cigarette.
Known as an “e-cig,” the device is a battery-operated smoking substitute that looks like an ordinary cigarette but produces no smoke or ash. Smoking an e-cig is called “vaping.”
While it’s unclear if the e-cig is much safer than an ordinary cigarette, the device has advantages in a smoke-free city such as Columbia. Risks associated with smoking tobacco cigarettes, such as secondhand smoke or fire safety, don’t exist with e-cigs. There are no combustible products with e-cigs, which means no lighting up and no smoldering tobacco. That means laws that regulate smoking tobacco products might not apply either.

Aspiring nonsmokers seem to be embracing the e-cig.

At Aardvarx, at 17 N. Tenth St., sales of an e-cig brand called “Nova Smoke” have been pretty steady. Stefanie Sigrist, who works at the smoking supply and gift shop, said Aardvarx has sold one to three of the electronic cigarette starter kits each week since the store began stocking them in December 2009.

“We’ve been placing orders every week,” she said.

The Nova Smoke looks like a rechargeable cigarette pack and has a flip-out plug in the base. The e-cig inside weighs slightly more than a regular cigarette because it contains a small rechargeable battery. The part that looks like the filter is a cartridge containing nicotine and an atomizer.

Lighting up an e-cig is simple: The “vaper” — the e-cig smoker — just presses the cartridge onto the battery and takes a puff. A small bulb on the end lights up, almost like a real cigarette. What’s missing is smoke, ash and smoldering tobacco. There’s no noticeable odor.

What’s inhaled is mainly water vapor, which gives off a mist and delivers varying amounts of nicotine, depending on what type of cartridge is in the cigarette.

There are several brands available.

Chris Guebert, 30, of St. Louis tried “blu” brand e-cigs last year, but decided to go back to tobacco cigarettes after several weeks. “It was kind of a pain,” he said.

He found the brand he tried became clogged and didn’t deliver consistent puffs after he used it for several days.

“I would have stuck with it if you got a consistent puff every time” Guebert said.

Guebert said he is not a heavy smoker. But two of his friends who smoke heavily tried e-cigs as well. They also went back to tobacco after a short time because of the same problem: just not the same tobacco kick, Guebert said.

“You don’t get the same drag” as you do from a tobacco cigarette, said Jordan Allen-Baxter, 22, a computer science junior. “You don’t feel the smoke hit your lungs.”

But he felt an improvement in his breathing within a month. Now, roughly six months since he began using an “e-cig,” he has cut his tobacco smoking at least by half, going from a pack of cigarettes every day or two, to one every four days. He said one of his friends used e-cigs to quit smoking entirely.

“There’s a different pattern from smoking regular cigarettes. With e-cigs, you take a puff whenever you want,” Allen-Baxter said. He said by using cartridges with the higher level of nicotine, a smoker gets just as much, if not more, nicotine than from tobacco cigarettes. He hopes to step down his smoking and nicotine craving by switching to cartridges with lower nicotine levels.

Using the e-cig to cut down or quit smoking fits with what Sigrist has observed about people buying the device. More than half of the buyers have told her that they were buying the kit to help them quit smoking, she said.

For smokers looking for a way around Columbia’s smoking ordinance, in effect since January 2007, the “e-cig” might just work. The ordinance makes possession of lighted, smoldering materials in enclosed public places unlawful. A smoking device that isn’t lit and produces no smoke, however, would not violate the city ordinance, said Environmental Health Manager Gerry Worley from the Columbia Health Department.

There’s a start-up cost: Smokers have to purchase a $44 kit, which consists of the charging cigarette case, the e-cig and its rechargeable battery and a cartridge containing nicotine with an atomizer that produces the vapor that smokers inhale.

Each cartridge has the same number of inhalations as an ordinary pack of cigarettes, Sigrist said. The store also stocks refill cartridges, which cost $7 for a pack of five.

Questions remain about the regulation of e-cigs.Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began blocking e-cigs import into the U.S. in early 2009, a U.S. District judge granted a preliminary injunction in January allowing importation of e-cigs until a final decision is reached.

Two e-cig suppliers filed a lawsuit against the FDA by mid-2009 to stop the agency from blocking e-cig importation.

The FDA cited the 2009 federal Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which allows the agency to monitor tobacco products. However, the act specifically applies to tobacco products, and electronic cigarettes contain no tobacco.

There might still be people who wish they weren’t available. Allen-Baxter said nonsmokers sometimes give him dirty looks when he’s “vaping” because they can see the vapor, a slight mist given off by the e-cig but they can’t smell the difference, leading to confusion about whether he is actually smoking.

BY Doug Davis, Columbiamissourian