Jury Still Out On E-Cigarettes
By Amy E. Feldman
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Grape, cotton candy, bubblegum. Not flavors of candy. Flavors of e-cigarettes. How legal are they?
The Centers for Disease Control found that the use of e-cigarettes among teens has tripled just since 2013. And it's no wonder. With the marketing of flavors that sound like what you'd find in an ice cream shop and advertisements stressing that they are all natural, organic, or not burned like regular tobacco products you'd almost think that the practice of "vaping", inhaling e-cigarette vapor was as natural as going to a sauna - if the sauna was filled with nicotine and flavoring, which is what gets heated in an e-cig among other additives that most people don't know or understand.
Right now, no states have banned their use completely but 18 states limit the use either by including e-cigarettes among regulations that limit smoking in some areas, or forbid their sale to minors. The County of West Chester, New York just became the most recent municipality among other counties that have also voted to limit sales to minors.
The jury is still out on whether e-cigarettes are, in fact, safer than tobacco products so understand that, although they're marketed as organic, you are inhaling liquid nicotine and decide for yourself if you're going from the frying pan into the e-fire.