Controversy Over E-Cigarettes

MYFOXNY.COM - Because of the smoke, the smell, the health concerns of smoking cigarettes, Michael Lohan, the father of Lindsey Lohan, is pushing an alternative to cigarettes that he says won't create harmful smoke and won't get you kicked out if a restaurant if you light up.

It looks real, but an "e-cigarette" is an impostor. It's a battery charged device with a liquid nicotine inside, but no tobacco or tar.

"If you want the taste of nicotine to satisfy that craving but you don't want the harmful elements of smoking, then this is the way to go," Lohan says.

You inhale the e-cigarette like a regular one. A computer chip inside warms the nicotine that is stored in a plastic filter. The combination of heat and liquid creates the vapor or smoke puff when you exhale. It's supposed to be odorless.

Lohan is a spokesperson and investor for the company that makes the e-cigarette.

"I was formally a smoker and since I picked these up there is no reason to smoke, none whatsoever," Lohan says.

Dr. Edward Eden, chief of pulmonary care at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan says that while a smoker is not getting the cancer-causing agents of a real cigarette, the nicotine in the e-cigarettes is still extremely addictive.

"Here in this situation you are probably getting more nicotine than you would be getting in a cigarette simply because filter cigarettes tend to dilute the nicotine that is being inhaled," Dr. Eden says. "And in this one you get the pure effects."

Another problem -- the Food and Drug Administration has launched an investigation, saying e-cigarettes are drugs and it is illegal to market them unless they've been approved. The FDA has not approved e-cigarettes.

The president of the company that markets the e-cigarette tells FOX he disagrees with the FDA's viewpoint and doesn't feel his product falls under the department's jurisdiction.

E-cigarettes are sold online and in kiosks in malls around the country.

In a letter to the FDA, Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey is calling for e-cigarettes to be pulled from the market until proven safe. The American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society back him up.