The Electronic Cigarettes Popularity

As temperatures drop, John Lindaas expects sales of electronic cigarettes to rise.

Since Wisconsin's indoor smoking ban went into effect in July, tavern and restaurant customers have been stepping outdoors to smoke Doina.

Cold weather might encourage them to stay indoors, where e-cigarettes are allowed.

Lindaas of the Cigarette Depot said e-cigarette have caught on locally since Wisconsin went smoke-free.


"I've had a very good response to sales, and people have been calling left and right inquiring about them," he said.

The trend worries Debbie Fischer, who as director of Rock County Youth2Youth teaches kids about the dangers of tobacco and other drugs.

"If they're regulated, then they're going to be OK to be here, and a lot of countries have banned them because of the uncertainty about their safety," she said.

"It would be better if they're regulated because we don't know what's going into them right now and neither do people smoking them," Fischer said.

Since Cigarette Depot on Milton Avenue started selling e-cigarettes three months ago, Lindaas said the store has sold about 100 starter kits. They cost $45.99 and contain a rechargeable cigarette, two cartridges—one menthol, one regular—and a charging kit.

The local store, one of several in Janesville to sell e-cigarettes, also sells refill cartridges—five for $15.99, he said.

A Janesville woman, who asked that her name not be published, said she bought an e-cigarette starter kit online a couple of years ago because she wanted to reduce the number of cigarettes she smoked.

She said the $80 investment paid off—she cut her habit from 20 cigarettes a day to three or four.

"Quitting was not my bottom-line goal," she said.

Smoking e-cigarettes, she said, gave her the same satisfaction of real cigarettes because they contain nicotine, but they don't include the smell and chemicals of tobacco smoke, she said.

"It's all water vapor," she said.

Unregulated

E-cigarettes look and feel like real cigarettes but are odorless, flameless and unregulated.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration wants to regulate them. The agency issued warning letters to five distributors of e-cigarettes for violating the federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services website.

The Janesville woman admitted she doesn't think e-cigarettes are any safer than smoking real cigarettes because she knows they contain nicotine. She remains undecided about whether the FDA should control e-cigarettes.

"There's no tobacco, but they don't have the other hundreds of chemicals added into cigarettes."

Fischer disagreed.

"We know some of chemicals in them can be dangerous, and that's why some other countries have banned them," she said.

"So we don't even know the danger of the vapor released from it when people are around as far as second-hand smoke issues. There's too much we don't know," she said.

Dr. Robert Cook, a lung specialist/physician at Mercy Regional Lung Center, Janesville, said it's not clear what e-cigarettes contain.

"It is a drug-delivery device and because it is it should probably be regulated or studies done to show it's safe without regulation. But at this point, the jury is out," Cook said.

Because e-cigarettes are electronic, Cook said, young adults are more likely to be drawn to them.

"There's some concern they may start using these recreationally and then perhaps become addicted to nicotine and start using cigarettes as well," he said.

Who buys?

Because e-cigarette are not regulated as a tobacco product, Fisher said, there's no age limit to who can buy them.

Lindaas said that's true.

"The age group—young to old—doesn't matter," he said of consumers.

He said "a lot" of the Cigarette Depot customers who buy e-cigarettes are doing it to quit smoking, but "most who buy them still smoke. It just gives them another option."

The Janesville woman who bought e-cigarettes said she has resumed smoking three-fourths of a pack of cigarettes a day.

"These e-cigs are intended for you to be able to smoke where you can't (smoke real cigarettes)—bars, restaurants, airports," she said.

That's why Lindaas predicts e-cigarette sales to increase as winter approaches.

"People don't want to go out in the cold to smoke," he said.