As more Americans put down their cigarettes in favor of their electronic counterparts, health officials and local governments are scrambling to adapt.

E-cigarettes, touted as a healthier, less-offensive alternative to cigarettes, are still a relatively new invention, and the degree to which they should be regulated is inevitably headed for debate.

In the meantime, Montana’s lack of laws regarding the devices concerns some people.

“There are no age limits in Montana,” said Leslie Diede, health promotions coordinator for the Flathead City-County Health Department. “Some of the retailers try to card people and regulate, but that’s not a sure thing.”

Diede said many local high school students are using the devices and her health promotion presentations to middle school students have had an interesting reaction.

“They think it is the coolest thing ever,” she said of the seventh- and eighth-graders. “They are so technology-minded. Our bodies are smart, and once a kid smokes a cigarette for the first time, the body rejects it. E-cigs are creating an opportunity to get addicted to nicotine.”

Ryan Bliss, owner of The Vapor Depot, one of Kalispell’s e-cigarette retailers, said his employees try to be diligent about who they sell to.

“It’s our policy to not sell to minors,” he said. “We’ve been around since February 2009 and that’s been our policy all this time. I do know that other Montana retailers are selling to minors. Those people make the entire industry look bad.”

Along with the lack of age limit (online retailers theoretically can sell to only those 18 or older, but there is no real way to check) there are no laws regarding where they may be used. Sale to minors is explicitly banned in 33 states, but many gas stations and convenience stores sell them as well.

The devices, small-battery powered machines filled with flavored liquid, vaporize the liquid using an atomizer and allow a user (known as a “vaper”) to inhale the nicotine-infused concoction and produce a smoke-like vapor. 

Invented by Hon Lik, a Chinese pharmacist who smoked three packs a day, they were designed after his father died of lung cancer.

Theoretically they are cleaner and less intrusive than cigarettes. Often the only aroma from the devices is the “flavor” of the liquid itself.

Diede said the many flavors could present a totally new problem.

“With flavors like cherry crush and bubble gum, it can be a temptation for kids,” she said. “What 25- or 30-year-old is going to buy flavors like that?”

With the amounts of nicotine often present in the liquid (the solution does not always contain nicotine) the concern of youth addiction is present. According to a 2012 psychiatric study, more than 10 percent of teenagers have tried e-cigarettes compared to just 3.4 percent of adults.

Diede said 90 percent of tobacco users start as teenagers.

Some of the companies making the e-cigarette liquids, such as those sold by Bliss, contain nicotine not derived from tobacco.

“Our mixture contains vegetable glycerin, distilled water and nicotine from eggplants, tomatoes and potatoes,” he said. “98 percent of all the nicotine comes from tobacco, but ours doesn’t. Ours doesn’t contain alcohol as well.”

Bliss is in favor of some moderate regulation of his industry but is worried that current proposed regulations would favor Big Tobacco.

“The proposed regulations have been left really open-ended so they can come back and find problems later,” he said. “I want to inform people that not all e-cigs are the same, nor are the liquids. People get lured in by cheap prices and nine out of ten are garbage.”

A study from Drexel University recently determined that, relative to filtered cigarettes, e-cigarettess were more or less harmless. Secondhand inhalation was sparse to none from FDA-registered and -licensed devices and liquids.

The Drexel study also concluded e-cigarettes might make a more effective cessation tool than nicotine patches or gum. In this regard, Diede and Bliss agree.

“In some of the devices the first and second puffs can contain different levels of nicotine,” Diede said. “But they may be a great cessation tool when they are regulated.”

Until further studies are done on the health and societal effects of electronic cigarettes, health officials and e-cig retailers have reached a sort of uneasy truce, with both trying to prevent sales to minors.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.