The Two Faces of E-(Cigs)

Invented by a Chinese pharmacist in 2003, e-cigs started gaining notoriety in the United States a few years later. Now several models have been built around similar technology. E-cigs mimic traditional cigarettes in terms of shape and function. Users get the feel of smoking without ingesting the tobacco and harmful toxins in cigarettes.

Pen-style e-cigs are larger and resemble a ballpoint pen. The model is growing in popularity — users say the larger e-cigs offer longer battery life and bigger nicotine cartridges.

All the versions contain a battery-powered chamber where a liquid form of nicotine or other substance is converted into vapor. Cartridges with varying strengths of nicotine are sold online and at stores often referred to as vape shops. Smokers who are trying to quit can use weaker and weaker nicotine cartridges, eventually transitioning to a solution with no nicotine at all. The ability to control the nicotine content is the main reason e-cigs are credited with helping people break the habit.

Purchasing liquid nicotine is legal and easy — more than 40 vape shops operate in Tarrant County alone. But for those wanting a vaporized high, getting supplies can be tricky.

To use marijuana in an e-cig, the drug must first be transformed into concentrated oil. In states like Colorado or California with marijuana dispensaries on street corners, oil can be bought legally. In Texas, smokers have to get creative.

Sandy, a Fort Worth resident, makes occasional trips to buy the liquid pot in states where it’s legal. The weed concentrates available in Fort Worth are in short supply and of questionable origins.

“I wouldn’t trust it,” he said. “You should worry about what you put in your body.”

There are e-cigs made specifically for smoking dry herb, but Sandy said the experience differs from using oils.

“It’s not total vaporization; it’s combustion,” he said. “It smells.”

The high can also be much different. Smoking pot that’s been set ablaze, turned to smoke, and inhaled deeply in the lungs gives users an instant and euphoric feeling that slowly eases into a pleasant buzz. Some users say vaporizing pot eases them past the initial spike and proceeds straight to the pleasant buzz, although predicting how anyone will react to smoking pot is difficult.

The Federal Drug Administration took a hard look at the e-cig phenomenon in 2009 after some people became worried about the chemical makeup of the liquids and the physical effects of those chemicals and of vaping itself.

Contradictory studies have found e-cig liquids to be both harmful chemical concoctions and effective tobacco substitutes. New information is released regularly, but there is still no agreement on health effects.

Some countries have banned the import and sale of electronic cigarettes because of the sparse information available about the chemicals. Australia classified nicotine liquid as a form of poison. Currently, the FDA categorizes e-cig liquids as tobacco products.

Despite the disagreement in research, e-cig sales have skyrocketed, tripling just during 2013, according to an article on the Bloomberg online business news site.

Earlier attempts by the FDA to regulate e-cigarettes have been struck down in federal court, but in April the agency tried again. The latest proposal would ban the sale of e-cigs to minors, require manufacturers to disclose product ingredients, require a nicotine warning on products, and restrict the sale of e-cigs in vending machines.

Reaction to the proposal has been mixed. Carl Phillips, scientific director for the nonprofit Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives, called the proposed regulation a de facto ban that would force many small e-cig manufacturers to shut down.

“It pretends to be a reasonable regulation, but in reality it destroys everything that exists so far,” he said. He called the proposed rules busywork that would create lots of paperwork.

“If the requirements were actual rules to make products better for consumers, then there would be a trade-off,” he said.

The nonprofit supports better disclosure of information and restrictions on sales to minors, and Phillips said he would like to see more testing of nicotine liquids. But he said it’s hard to imagine the regulations, as proposed, doing much good.

The research results in this country have led to a patchwork of local laws and attitudes. E-cig regulations range from strict to nonexistent. Several cities in North Texas have limited the public use of the devices. Thus far, Frisco is the only city in the area to outlaw them altogether.

“I’m just not compelled to view e-cigarettes any differently than I view regular cigarettes,” Frisco City Council member Bob Allen said at the Feb. 18 meeting when the ban was approved. “I appreciate the benefits of e-cigarettes for helping smokers break a terrible habit, but I don’t think I or my family or our citizens should be exposed to that in an environment where they aren’t allowed to be exposed to cigarettes.”

In Denton, the University of North Texas treats e-cigs the same as traditional cigarettes. The school banned smoking at the start of 2013, including the electronic version. People are required to go to the outskirts of campus to smoke and must stay at least 25 feet from building entrances.

Recent UNT graduate Dana Pisciottano said the ban hardly affected her. She thinks it was implemented to take care of the butts and other litter attached to cigarette use.

She continued to smoke on campus, Pisciottano said, in secluded areas and without leaving litter behind. But a year ago, she switched to e-cigs, in part because she believes it is cheaper.

Regulating e-cigs may not be such a bad thing, she said: If she could get more information about what she’s consuming, Pisciottano said, she would have more confidence in her habit.

 ******