Are E-Cigarettes a Boon or a Menace?
A new study says they may aid folks who want to quit smoking. But doctors fear there's a darker side to the electronic devices.
E-cigs—as these battery-operated nicotine inhalers are commonly called—are increasingly popular, with a Wells Fargo financial analyst predicting that U.S. sales will double this year, going up to $1.7 billion.
Their visibility is becoming ever greater as well, with television and online marketing campaigns that feature celebrities like Jenny McCarthy and Stephen Dorff touting the pleasures of what they describe as more socially acceptable, "guilt-free" smoking.
Whether that is so was the focus of a study published in The Lancet, which concluded that e-cigarettes were statistically comparable to nicotine patches in helping smokers quit over a six-month period.
But this was only the first study to compare e-cigarettes to an already established quitting aid. "There is still so much that is unknown
