Some late breaking news today. More info later, but right now, this:
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.

More stuff that I just don’t get. Here’s a quote from another e-cigarette article:
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.

See how easily this Illinois business used electronic cigarettes to help satisfy their smoking customers after the ban went into effect:
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 …

So, who vowed to quit smoking this year? And–more importantly–who vowed to quit smoking analogs?? #
My 2010 vow–to get back to regular posts on E Cig Guide. Let's make this year great! #

Great debate and comments here on this anti-e-cigarette opinion piece from USA Today. http://ow.ly/BObN #

This one’s only tangentially related to electronic cigarettes, but it was so strange I thought it was worth linking to. The New Times down in Palm Beach profiles a swindler who started an electronic cigarette business:
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 …

Here’s a rather boneheaded local TV news story about the electronic cigarette. If you follow e-cig news at all, you know that it’s become one of those go-to stories (blacklight in a hotel room! pedophiles next door! urine in playground sand! etc) for local producers hard up for stuff to file.
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 …

James Dunworth, director of E Cigarette Direct, published a press release / open letter to President Obama asking him to intervene on behalf of electronic cigarette users. The Kennedy Tobacco Bill, which would put e-cigs under the control of the FDA (and would probably lead to an immediate ban), is out of committee and will be up for a Senate vote soon. Right now, President Obama supports the bill. North Carolina senator Richard M. Burr (R) has threatened to filibuster it.
Full text of Dunworth’s letter below:
LONDON, ENGLAND — (OfficialWire) — …

“I believe everyone has a choice in this nation,” said Beth Dore, Duso’s new owner. “Being a nonsmoker, I didn’t feel I had a choice to go into a bar without smoke. Now there is a choice.”
Here’s a refreshing article on the electronic cigarette. It’s refreshing because it begins with a a real-world solution to a small business owner’s problem. Duso’s Bar of Bay City is helping its smoking customer base by selling electronic cigarettes.
I remember the first time I visited Chicago from New York–I was so surprised to see …