E-Cigarettes Spark New Smoking War

(Wall Street Journal) - Victoria Vasconcellos, the Chicago-based founder of an internet retailer, is in the thick of a regulatory battle that could affect millions of American cigarette smokers, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Vasconcellos imports electronic cigarettes from a Chinese manufacturer and sells them on her website, Cignot.com, to 14,000 customers.

The 48-year-old is part of a growing legion of e-cigarette purveyors who are defying the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which contends the nascent nicotine products are drug devices that require pre-market approval and may pose their own health risks.

The FDA began intercepting shipments of the products from China two years ago.

E-cigarettes are battery-powered tubes that turn nicotine-laced liquid into a vapor mist. Sellers say they are potentially less harmful than cigarettes because they do not have the toxins of burning tobacco. A growing number of people who use them say they are an effective way to quit smoking.

The future of the fledgling industry -- estimated at $100 million in annual sales and rising -- may hinge on the outcome of a case scheduled for oral arguments before a federal appellate court in Washington, D.C., next month.

The FDA is fighting to regulate the products as drug-delivery devices, similar to nicotine gums, patches or other nicotine-replacement products. Such a classification would subject e-cigarettes to lengthy and expensive trials to prove they are safe and effective.

But many e-cigarette companies argue that their products are designed to be recreational alternatives to cigarettes, not devices to wean people off nicotine. They say they could not afford the high cost of clinical trials, and that any such mandate would drive many of them out of business or force the industry to go underground.

E-cigarettes have caught fire in part because they mimic the experience of smoking. When a user sucks on an e-cigarette, an atomizer turns the liquid inside into a vapor -- which is why the practice is called "vaping" instead of smoking. Consumers typically pay $40 to $120 for a starter kit, and then pay smaller amounts for liquid refills.

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