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RICHMOND, Va.—That's not smoke coming out of Cliff Phillips' mouth. But that hasn't stopped others from cringing, making remarks, waving their hands in their faces and coughing at the sight of the vapor from his electronic cigarette. "They're just conditioned if they see you inhale and exhale something, it's got to be smoke and it's going to stink. ... They're not even smelling anything," said Phillips, a 61-year-old retiree and former cigarette smoker from Cuba, Ill. Electronic cigarettes don't burn and don't give off smoke.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's announcement came after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a decision which said that electronic cigarettes are not drugs or devices unless they are marketed for therapeutic purposes. In 2009, the FDA was given the authority to regulate tobacco products that are not drugs or devices. Electronic cigarettes, marketed under names such as NJOY, mimic the act of smoking and include nicotine, but do not emit the same type of odour or ash. In December, three judges from the appellate court ruled that the FDA could regulate the products as...

This new YouTube video features President Obama chewing his nicotine gum in public - first at the G8 summit, later at the G20 summit in Toronto and finally in front of children in the Oval Office. I feel Obama's pain. I have studied up on addiction and done plenty of work for charities that seek to combat alcohol, tobacco and other drugs (ATODs). One of my first jobs, for example, was with a government program called L.A. Link that was focused on reducing illegal nicotine use among adolescents in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. I remember interviewing a heroin addict...

A new pill that could cure one of the most lethal forms of cancer is being developed by scientists. British researchers have found that a drug destroys tumours in a form of inoperable lung cancer that kills more than nine out of 10 sufferers. The treatment works by blocking the growth of the cancer cells and eventually causing them to self destruct. In more than 50 per cent of the trials, the treatment, which appears to have no side affects, killed all traces of the disease. "We are very excited about it," said Professor Michael Seckl, the molecular oncologist who...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Could it be good news for smokers? Current and past-smokers with coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, or peripheral artery disease have less than half the cardiovascular mortality than never-smokers, the initial findings from a new study suggest. But don't be so quick to tell your patients to light up: After accounting for potential confounders, the association was not statistically significant. "The relationship between smoking habit and outcome in patients with established arterial disease remains controversial," Dr. M. Monreal, of Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol, Barcelona, Spain, and colleagues write in the September issue of...

British scientists say they've determined nicotine can delay the effects of ricin used during a bioterrorism attack. Jon Mabley and his colleagues at the University of Brighton found nicotine works to block the tissue-destroying effects of ricin -- a highly toxic compound derived from castor beans. The study was conducted in laboratory models, but the scientists said nicotine agonists could potentially be used in patients exposed to ricin as a stopgap measure before other treatments take effect. The British investigators studied the effect of nicotine on animals exposed to ricin and found it reduced death and organ failure. "The protective...

Lower-income adults were more likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke than those with higher incomes -- 63 percent vs. 54 percent, the study found.

Enlarge ImageBoxed in. Nicotine (center) nestled into brain receptor "box." Credit: Dennis Dougherty If nicotine liked muscle receptors as much as it likes brain receptors, a single cigarette would kill. Scientists have finally figured out why the molecule is so picky--a finding that may shed light on the addictiveness of smoking. For nicotine--or any molecule--to interact with its receptor, the two must bind. Having opposite charges on the molecule and the receptor's binding site, referred to as the "box," helps. But the nicotine receptors in the brain and muscles are nearly identical--nicotine has a positive charge, and both receptors'...

ATLANTA, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- The annual rate of U.S. smoking-attributable deaths per 100,000 people declined by approximately 25 deaths from 1996-99 to 2000-04, officials said.

BATTERY-powered cigarettes, sold as a "healthier alternative" and a way to beat smoking bans, will be outlawed in Victoria from Friday. Distributors say electronic cigarettes have been used by up to 10,000 Victorians since they hit the market a year ago. The Egar device works by heating up a small cartridge of liquid nicotine, releasing puffs of vapour resembling smoke that are inhaled by smokers. But because the lookalike product is not lit, it can be used in "no smoking" areas. It contains no tobacco, but Health Minister Daniel Andrews says its nicotine is no less toxic and addictive. From...

A Queens woman was arrested by federal authorities after a JetBlue flight was forced to make an emergency landing because she allegedly lit and refused to extinguish a cigarette on the plane and punched a flight attendant in the face, according to KUSA.com. The plane was en route from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday when officials said passenger Christina Szele, 35, lit a cigarette in her seat and starting smoking, the Rocky Mountain News reported. Smoking is forbidden on all domestic flights, but the Rocky Mountain News reported that when a...

New 'snus' taking on smoking ban Monday, March 17, 2008 3:07 AM By James Nash THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH It might have a funny-sounding name, but snus is no laughing matter to activists who led the 2006 campaign to ban smoking from public places across Ohio. Snus, a nugget of tobacco wrapped in a porous tissue, will be under the lips of thousands of people in central Ohio this year if product launches by three tobacco companies are successful. The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. started selling Camel Snus in central Ohio in July. Lorillard Tobacco Co. introduced its lower-cost Triumph brand...

In the early days of life without nicotine I am focusing on the positives associated with quitting. The greatest thought is an incident that firmly planted the quit smoking seed into my mind. Even before my diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease surfaced, the wheels were put into motion by a most unlikely source. It came out of the blue from my 9-year-old grandson. As part of the Thanksgiving observance last year at his school, he noted what the holiday means to him. What he posted on the wall in his third grade classroom was priceless. He wrote, “I am...

PRESIDENTIAL hopeful Barack Obama is trying to quit smoking. There are, of course, many good reasons to. He will significantly reduce his own risk of serious disease and that of those around him by not smoking. But clearly, one of the reasons Obama wants to quit now — beyond pressure from his wife — is that it would be widely perceived as unseemly and inappropriate to have a smoker in the White House. Smoking has become a marginalized and often stigmatized behavior, a sign of personal weakness — which just won't do in a presidential candidate these days. A once-social...

TUESDAY, Oct. 17 (HealthDay News) -- A new study finds that at least 1 in every 4 smokers will develop progressive and incurable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a much higher risk than previously believed. COPD is a respiratory disease that results in blocked air flow to the lungs and grows progressively worse. For this study, published online in the journal Thorax, researchers at Hvidovre Hospital analyzed data on 8,000 men and women, ages 30 to 60. All were monitored for 25 years as part of the Copenhagen City Heart Study. At the start of the study, all the participants'...

PARIS If Alexander Schoppmann is right, then where there's smoke, there's a flier. As more countries ban smoking in public places, his idea might seem malapropos. But Schoppmann, a German entrepreneur, is hoping to turn smokers' umbrage at ever-expanding efforts to stub out their habit into a highflying business proposal: Smoker's International Airways. As the name suggests, the airline, known as Smintair for short, will probably not be for the faint of lung. The carrier, expected to begin luxury service with only business and first-class seats early next year, plans daily flights between Schoppmann's hometown of Düsseldorf and Tokyo -...

SMOKERS struggling to stub out that final cigarette may have new insight into why it is so hard to quit. A report shows American tobacco companies increased nicotine levels by an average of 10 per cent over six years.

BOSTON (AFX) - The level of nicotine that smokers typically consume per cigarette has risen about 10 percent in the past six years, making it harder to quit and easier to get hooked, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Massachusetts Department of Health. The study shows a steady climb in the amount of nicotine delivered to the lungs of smokers regardless of brand, with overall nicotine yields increasing by about 10 percent. Massachusetts is one of three states to require tobacco companies to submit information about nicotine testing according to its specifications and the only state with...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Attorneys for a man who has been sentenced to death say some members of the jury rushed to judgment because they needed a nicotine fix. Tuesday the Ohio Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments in the appeal of Phillip Elmore, convicted three years ago in the strangling of his ex-girlfriend in Newark. Elmore's attorneys say that the fact the judge wouldn't let jury members smoke or step outside to smoke led them to make a quick decision. That's one of 17 allegations the appeal makes. Lawyers for Elmore also say his trial attorneys were ineffective.

Excerpt - LITTLE ROCK - Gov. Mike Huckabee, who successfully pushed for a statewide workplace smoking ban earlier this year, predicted Wednesday that cigarettes eventually won't be sold because of their health risks. "I think the day will come when we probably won't" sell cigarettes, Huckabee said on his monthly call-in radio show. "If cigarettes were introduced to the marketplace today, they wouldn't be sold. They'd never make it because what we didn't know when they were first created, sold and marketed is just how deadly harmful they were." Huckabee was responding to a caller's question of why cigarettes are...