RTI uses cookies to offer you the best experience online. By clicking “accept” on this website, you opt in and you agree to the use of cookies. If you would like to know more about how RTI uses cookies and how to manage them please view our Privacy Policy here. You can “opt out” or change your mind by visiting: http://optout.aboutads.info/. Click “accept” to agree.
E-cigarettes, more formally electronic nicotine delivery systems, were introduced in 2007. They are battery powered, cigarette shaped devices that vaporize nicotine so that it can be inhaled. E-cigarettes are currently a relatively tiny market. In the United States they accounted for about $500m (£330m; €390m) in sales last year, perhaps 0.5% of tobacco receipts.1
That is changing. The tobacco company Lorillard purchased the leading e-cigarette maker Blu last year. Reynolds American is expanding marketing of its Vuse e-cigarettes, and Altria, the largest US tobacco company, has announced that it will enter the e-cigarette market later this year with its own product.1 Marlboro e-cigarettes, anyone? The game is on.
This, of course, has public health advocates terrified. Just when we had Big Tobacco on the run, with US sales falling 3-4% a year, along comes a new product that may save them—as well as maintain the nicotine addiction that they depend on for sales. In fact, tobacco industry sales were down more than 6% last year, due in no small part to the increase in e-cigarette sales. Hence the recent acquisitions and announcements...