Jan. 25--Smoking indoors without the secondhand smoke? A nicotine rush without the cancer-causing chemicals?

For about 3 million people in the United States, electronic cigarettes sound like a dream come true.

Charlie Casados, manager of Smoke Source 51, started offering them at a booth in Coronado Shopping Center in July and sells 25 to 30 kits a day.

The devices may be popular with consumers who see them as a safe alternative to cigarettes but public health officials say too little is known to label them safe.

Electronic cigarettes, which often resemble traditional cigarettes or pens, have a lithium battery that ignites a coil, which heats a nicotine-filled cartridge. Smokers exhale a vapor that doesn't contain the tar or carbon monoxide found in most tobacco cigarettes.

Smokers who have switched to electronic cigarettes say they get the same satisfaction from inhaling the nicotine that they get from a traditional cigarette.

"It's just like smoking," said Lynette Catt of Tularosa, who first tried e-cigarettes about seven months ago and now sells them online. "The electronic cigarette is a little heavier. There is no ashtray. But the sensation of smoking is pretty much the same."

The kits Casados sells cost $80 to $135. An $80 kit includes a battery, two cartridges, a case and charger. One cartridge equals about two packs of tobacco cigarettes. "We're doing quite well," he said.

Last year, U.S. Food and Drug Administration chemists tested 18 cartridges and two cigarettes made by two companies and reported varying levels of nicotine and traces of cancer-causing nitrosamines found in tobacco. One cartridge contained diethylene glycol, an ingredient in antifreeze.

The Electronic Cigarette Association, an industry group, has said those results were too narrow to reach a valid conclusion. If used in the proper amounts, electronic cigarettes are nontoxic and non-carcinogenic, Matt Salmon, president of the ECA and a former Arizona congressman, said in an e-mailed statement.

Most are imported from China, and FDA officials have stopped shipments from at least 20 manufacturers, claiming the products are drug delivery devices that require scrutiny.

But earlier this month, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary injunction that prevents the FDA from seizing the devices. The judge said they should be classified as tobacco products.

In a statement, the FDA said public health issues surrounding e-cigarettes remained a serious concern and the agency would review the decision.

Unregulated industry

The New Mexico Department of Health hasn't taken a stance on them, said David Tompkins, media strategist for the Tobacco Use, Prevention and Control Program administered by the state agency. Tompkins expects states to look at clean air laws to determine how -- or whether -- e-cigarettes should be included.

In New Jersey, the sale of e-cigarettes is prohibited to people under 19, and adults are barred from smoking them at work and in public places. This month, California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed suit against Smoking Everywhere Inc., claiming the company has no evidence to back up safety claims.

E-cigarettes remain an unregulated industry. That means no health warnings are required, unlike nicotine patches and gum. But that doesn't mean they are harmless, he said.

The tobacco industry once touted cigarettes as a safe social norm, he said. Unregulated until last year, cigarettes were deemed "safer" when companies added filters and created low tar and light cigarettes. Tompkins said he worries e-cigarettes are slipping between regulations in a similar way.

"They're always able to make a safer way to keep people addicted," he said. "It's dej... vu."

Tompkins also worries that young people will get hooked without realizing the potential for addiction.

Without evidence about their health impacts, consumers should be wary, said Patricia Torn, coordinator of tobacco control programs for the American Lung Association in New Mexico.

The Electronic Cigarette Association says about 3 million people in the United States use the devices, which shouldn't be seen as a smoking cessation tool but as a safer alternative to tobacco products.

While some e-cigarette smokers, often called vapers, may still use them to try to quit tobacco cigarettes, Torn said they may not be as effective as other products.

"If you look at the habits of smokers, that hand to mouth and inhale, exhale is an important part of the habit. The e-cigarettes do not address that."

Faithful vapers maintain that e-cigarettes are better than the alternative. "I was looking for something where I wouldn't have to share my bad habit with everyone around me, especially my family," said Catt, who had tried to quit smoking tobacco cigarettes several times.

Catt supports further testing of e-cigarettes as well as FDA oversight.

"I just want an alternative for other people to be able to turn to," she said. "Whatever is needed to be done to make it more available and safe."

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