If you fire up a battery-powered cigarette in public, are you harming yourself and others? Or are you exercising your right to use an alternative to incendiary tobacco that might help you kick a nasty and dangerous habit? Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department officials are considering a ban on electronic cigarettes in public places, and those questions are certain to be heatedly discussed in the next few weeks. Proposed regulations unveiled Wednesday would prohibit e-smoking – or “vaping,” as users call it – anywhere the use of real cigarettes and cigars already is prohibited by stat ... Jump to full article >>

The U.S. government said on Monday it plans to regulate electronic cigarettes as tobacco products. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s announcement came after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a decision which said that electronic cigarettes are not drugs or devices unless they are marketed for therapeutic purposes. In 2009, the FDA was given the authority to regulate tobacco products that are not drugs or devices. Electronic cigarettes, marketed under names such as NJOY, mimic the act of smoking and include nicotine, but do not emit the same type of odour or as ... Jump to full article >>

Last week I attended the annual conference of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT) in Toronto, and so this week I plan to discuss some of the more interesting developments presented at that meeting. One of the most interesting studies was presented in a poster by Dr Andrea Vansickel and colleagues at Professor Tom Eissenberg’s laboratory at Virginia Commonwealth University. This group had previously published a study of e-cigarette use in cigarette smokers which found that they obtained only negligible levels of blood nicotine from the e-cigarettes. In the poster last ... Jump to full article >>

WEST PALM BEACH — Even when he was coughing up blood and knew he was dying from lung cancer, Dominick Tullo still wanted a cigarette. If that’s not addiction, an attorney for Tullo’s widow asked a jury Thursday, what is? The Palm Beach County jury’s answer to that question will be key to whether four tobacco giants will be forced to pay 87-year-old Mary Tullo millions for the loss of her husband of 51 years. Dominick Tullo, a New York City native who spent the last decade of his life in Lake Worth, succumbed to lung cancer in 1998 at age 74. To win, attorney Steven Hammer m ... Jump to full article >>

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—Hanging out in entertainment hubs and restaurants in Metro Manila can be bad for the health, according to a recent study. The study, commissioned by the Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, showed that of the five types of public places screened for second-hand tobacco smoke in the metropolis, two—entertainment venues and dining areas—had the highest air nicotine levels. These places also registered extreme concentrations of particulate matters, which are hazardous fine particles produced and released into the air by combustion, including s ... Jump to full article >>

They’re not cigarettes, but they’re are close enough to catch the attention of Clark County Public Health. E-cigarettes often look like normal cigarettes, but rather than burning tobacco, smokers puff on vaporized nicotine solutions. They’re battery-powered and have a red LED at the end that mimics the burning tip of the real thing. Health department leaders briefed the Clark County commissioners, who also act as the county’s Board of Health, on the issue and proposed adopting an ordinance that would ban sale of the devices to people younger than 18. [caption id="attach ... Jump to full article >>

Katherine Heigl just can’t seem to go anywhere without sparking up a cigarette. Even in the back of a taxi, the 32-year-old can be seen puffing away on her trusty stick. The actress is on holiday in Miami with her husband Josh Kelley, and cuts a rare sight on the non-smoking beaches with a cigarette elegantly protruding from those picture-perfect lips. But all is not what it seems, because the Knocked Up star is using her handy ‘smokestick’ electric cigarette accessory. The stunning mum-of-one credits the contraption with helping her beat a chronic addiction to nicotine. An ... Jump to full article >>

INDIANAPOLIS, March 16 (UPI) — Dissolvable tobacco products — pop-into-the-mouth replacements for cigarettes — have the potential to cause mouth diseases, U.S. researchers say. John V. Goodpaster of Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis and colleagues say the first dissolvable tobacco products in pellet, stick and strip forms went on sale in 2009 in test markets in Indianapolis; Columbus, Ohio; and Portland, Ore. The products contain mainly nicotine, along with finely-ground tobacco and a variety of flavoring ingredients, sweeteners and binders. They are marketed ... Jump to full article >>

Smokers now face another risk from their habit: It could cost them a shot at a job. More hospitals and medical businesses are adopting strict policies that make smoking a reason to turn away job applicants, saying they want to increase worker productivity, reduce health care costs and encourage healthier living. The new rules essentially treat cigarettes like an illegal narcotic. Applications now warn of “tobacco-free hiring,” job seekers must submit to urine tests for nicotine and new employees caught smoking face termination. This shift to smoker-free workplaces has prompted shar ... Jump to full article >>

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has lost another round in its battle to regulate electronic cigarettes as drug-delivery devices rather than as tobacco products. E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat cartridges of liquid containing nicotine to create a mist that users inhale. The FDA classifies them as drug-delivery devices like nicotine patches and gums – products that it must approve before they can be marketed. In December, a three-judge appeals panel in the District of Columbia (D.C.) disagreed with the FDA’s position. The panel ruled that the FDA could only reg ... Jump to full article >>

Animal rights activists have rescued a 12-year-old chimpanzee from a zoo in Lebanon, after it was discovered the animal had developed a cigarette habit. Omega, who has reportedly never climbed a tree or been in an environment with other chimpanzees, began smoking after visitors to a now-defunct zoo in Ansar began throwing lit cigarettes into his cage, the Associated Press is reporting. Still, it was not the primate’s first exposure to nicotine — according to Beirut’s Daily Star, Omega had been used in a local restaurant, where he served water pipe to customers and would occ ... Jump to full article >>