Battery-powered cigarettes deliver nicotine without the fumes
Jim Spencer has smoked for 35 years, about three packs a day for the past 20.
He has vaped — the term for using a personal vaporizer also known as an e-cigarette — for about two months. He’s a definite fan of the penshaped device, gladly demonstrates its workings to anyone interested and has been making converts for what some people in the business and health officials think may become the next debate in the use of nicotine.
E-cigarettes use a rechargeable battery to activate a heating coil that quickly heats nicotine suspended in a propylene glycol solution, which in some models is soaked into a soft fabric cartridge, until it vaporizes. The user inhales the vapor just as if he were smoking a cigarette and exhales a white mist that resembles smoke or steam.
Prices range from about $60 to $240 when extra cartridges and flavoring options such as mint or fruit flavors are included.
The device comes in several styles — some, like Spencer’s, resemble an ink pen with a mouthpiece while others look like a pipe or a regular 
cigarette. Some light up orange or green at the tip when in use.
“It does satisfy my cravings,” said Spencer, of Rockford, Ill. “I use it, and I’ve probably cut down on my regular smoking by about 75 percent.” But he said the devices aren’t marketed as nicotine-replacement therapy.
The National Institutes of Health say a tobacco cigarette delivers about 10 milligrams of nicotine. E-cigarette cartridges can hold up to 36 milligrams of nicotine.
Or an e-cigarette cartridge can hold no nicotine, which is the type Jayne Engelsen, of Belvidere, Ill., uses.
She also smokes regular cigarettes but said, “I don’t necessarily like the taste of cigarettes, so I went with a
mint-flavored cartridge and there is Marlboro zero cartridge which has no nicotine in it, and I get along fine with that.”
ARE THEY SAFE?
Larry Didier, tobacco programs coordinator for the Winnebago County (Ill.) Health Department, said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is looking into regulating the use of ecigarettes.
“Certainly, we know that nicotine is addictive, so the question is whether nicotine consumed in this way is more addictive or less addictive. Who knows? At this point, we don’t,” he said.
Dr. Robert Bales, Winnebago County Health Department’s medical director, said he can find no studies that look into whether e-cigarettes are safe to use.
“From a health-care standpoint, we have no idea what any long-term or short-term effects of inhaling this vapor may be,” Bales said. “What we do know is that it has not been studied as a stop-smoking product and the World Health Organization is saying these things should either be studied more or they should not be used.”
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