A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Food and Drug Administration to stop blocking the importation of electronic cigarettes from China and indicated that the devices should be regulated as tobacco products rather than drug or medical devices.

via F.D.A. Ordered to Stop Blocking Imports of E-Cigarettes – NYTimes.com.

Dr. Matthew Mintz is board certified in internal medicine. Mintz recently appeared on a CBS morning show to warn about the unknown effects.

True, there definitely hasn’t be enough testing. But whenever someone says “…but you don’t know what’s in that thing…”  I say, as opposed to that cigarette you’re smoking? You know exactly what’s in that, and it’s not great.

via E-Cigarettes may not be the answer to Quitting Smoking | MyWayBusiness.com Business News.

At Aurelio’s Pizza in Mokena, New Lenox and Frankfort, owner Joe Pascale allows customers to light up and puff away – provided they’re using electronic cigarettes. For a time, Pascale was selling the devices, which contain nicotine and resemble a real cigarette but expel only water vapor.

Although those patrons are few, he says, it’s an alternative to please smokers, including those on his busy staff as well as non-smokers.

“We’ve had people get (mad), and we say, ‘That’s an electronic cigarette,’ and they say, ‘OK,’” Pascale said.

via Fewer huff & puff over state smoke ban :: The Courier News :: Business.

If so, you are far from alone. According to usa.gov it’s one of the most popular resolutions for 2010, behind losing weight and getting out of debt. Now maybe using an electronic cigarette is part of your quitting method, but maybe it’s not. Studies haven’t been done on whether it’s an effective quitting aide. But whether you use the e-cigarette, a nicotine patch, or cold turkey, there are quite a few other tips and resources I want to share to help you along your way.

1. Pick one habit at a time
Sure we all want to quit smoking, lose weight, get out of debt, hike the Appalachian Trail (seriously, not a euphemism), find a new job, or train for a marathon. But for the first month or so, focus on just one of these goals or habits. See, will power, like a muscle, needs time to grow and develop. When you overwhelm it with challenges, it tends to give out rather than get stronger. Train it slowly, and you’ll get much better results.

2. Think: “21 days”
Contrary to popular internet belief, there’s no study that says it takes 21 days to form a new habit. But for many, 21-28 days is the magical time when a forced action transforms into a habit. Use your willpower to get to those 21 days, and know that you won’t need as much willpower afterward.

3. Get enough sleep
Remember number 1, about doing one habit at a time? Yeah. Well if you want to quit smoking, now’s not the time to also get less sleep, or to starve yourself silly. Let’s go back to the muscle analogy: if you overwork your willpower muscle, it’ll need lots of time to recover. So don’t waste it on other things if you’re going to need it to stop smoking.

4. Decide if you’re an incremental change or a no-exceptions person
There’s no right or wrong answer to this. It’s all up to you to experiment and see if you can handle eating just one M&M, or if one M&M always leads to the whole bag. But once you make your decision, stick with it.

5. Write it down
Go ahead, write down your resolution in big letters across the top of a piece of paper. Then ask yourself, “Do you really want to do this? Now?” Don’t be embarrassed if the answer is “no.” Sometimes we want to change habits because other people tell us. Not because we’re ready. But if the answer is “yes” then you’ll need to do some more writing. First, write down all the pluses and minuses of breaking your old habit and developing the new one. Then decide, again, if this is a habit worth breaking right now. If the answer’s still yes, then use the piece of paper to write down every worst-case scenario, and how you’ll handle it. Do you smoke only when you drink? Picture yourself in that situation, and what you’ll do and what you’ll have to tell yourself. Do you reach for a cigarette whenever you feel nervous or anxious? Get yourself in that mindset, and think about what you could do instead (phone a friend, have a cup of tea, take a quick walk around the block to clear your head, etc.).

6. Don’t just break a habit, replace it.
If you’re going to lose something you love, like smoking, you’ll do a lot better if you replace that habit with something else: a favorite drink or candy you can have when you get the urge. Or a replacement activity: dancing, bike-riding, jogging. Anything that can act as a replacement for your negative habit, so you don’t just think of quitting as the end of something fun. Just don’t make it too strenuous (see tip #1). Hey, if you decide to replace that cigarette with an e-cigarette, all the better

Need more advice? Check out the wonderful Zen Habits blog. Here’s a round-up of all their posts about changing habits.

And finally, here’s an inspiring video to get you started. Find out what happens when you test the willpower of a bunch of adorable children. This stuff doesn’t get any easier, kids.

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

In late March, at the Blue Martini Lounge on Glades Road in Boca Raton, Gladstone encountered a big-talking, cocktail-swilling business man, sporting a Star of David tattoo on his neck and taking drags off an electronic cigarette.
Gladstone had known Howard Needle before — socially, not in the business world, and he knew nothing of Needle’s criminal past. It so happened that Gladstone had a friend, Jaet, who had also switched to electronic cigarettes, which satisfied the craving without nearly the health effects. Gladstone had some money to invest. A mutual friend vouched for Needle’s sales skills and Jaet could be a marketer.

Apparently he also ran a scam on the owner of Crown7 cigarettes, who talked to the paper in a followup piece.

Got Needle. Need Haystack.

The problem I have with this story is that they gave an electronic cigarette for a women to use to quit smoking, which is a claim manufacturers can’t make. And the woman reasoned that she might as well have a real cigarette in her hand if she’s going to be puffing away at something. Erm, that’s like saying you might as well have antifreeze if you’re holding a cup in your hand. Some people like and want the sensation of smoking, without the tar or carcinogens. THAT is what is the electronic cigarette is for. And you can use zero nicotine liquid if you just want flavor.

I thought this was especially hilarious:

The e-cigarette is banned in Canada, but here in the United States, there aren’t any restrictions on selling it or even using it. WENY-TV News set up a hidden camera at Holmes Plate in Corning to find out if that’s really the case. Paula started smoking on the e-cigarette just minutes after we sat down in the restaurant. The bartender never asked Paula to put it out.

I bet the TV crew was seriously disappointed when no one said anything to ol’ Paula about her e-cigarette. Hidden cameras are local TV news channels’ bread and butter.

link: WENY-TV News – Local News