Now that smoking is banned in most Tennessee restaurants, smokers like Carolyn Hampton are adapting to the world around them. If you see the Tri-City Wholesale Tobacco owner inside a restaurant puffing on something that looks like a cigarette, don’t be alarmed. In all likelihood, it is not a real cigarette. Instead, it is probably an electronic cigarette.
"If you’re in a place that you cannot smoke and you’re wanting to light up, it does take the edge off of not having nicotine,” Hampton said.
At her Johnson City business, e-cigarettes are flying off the shelves.
“We got our first order, sold-out and had to re-order, plus I had to get some from another store,” Hampton said.
The battery-powered cigarette alternatives are advertised as being tobacco and smoke-free.
E-cigarettes contain liquid nicotine rather than tobacco and instead of smoke, people exhale an odorless vapor, which makes them legal in places that ban smoking.
"It does not meet the Smoker Protection Act's definition of smoking,” Tennessee Department of Health Division of General Environmental Health Director Hugh Atkins said.
Although the e-cigs do not appear to break any laws, their health effects are up for debate.
"They're smoke-free,” Hampton said. “No second-hand smoke, no tar, so they're actually healthier."
The Tennessee Department of Health is not ready to go that far.
"Some of the items that have been detected (by the Food and Drug Administration) in preliminary tests do have some carcinogens,” Department of Health Communications Director Andrea Turner said. “The question is, ‘Are those carcinogens being emitted through that vapor?’"
The FDA began investigating electronic cigarettes last year and is expected to continue its research into the latest fad.
“It would probably be preliminary or premature to indicate whether or not the product is a health concern,” Turner said. “There’s still some research that needs to be done to determine that.”
With that in mind, Carolyn Hampton expects to see more government regulation in the near future, but for now she has no complaints.
"I love it,” Hampton said. “I still smoke regular cigarettes, but it is a good alternative to smoking where you can't smoke."
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