Despite ban, electronic cigarette retailers call their product safe

Despite the Health Ministry announcement's this week that it would ban the import of electronic cigarettes, online retailers continued to claim that their products are safe and helpful to smokers looking to quit traditional tobacco products.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning earlier this week, stating that the battery-powered electronic devices are dangerous.

Electronic cigarettes were first manufactured a year and a half ago. They release vaporized liquid doses of nicotine.

The Hong Kong-based company Ruyan, the first company to distribute electronic cigarettes in Israel, stated on its Israeli Web site, "Our cigarettes have filters that underwent laboratory tests, which showed they contained no poisonous substances."

"Our cigarette is the only one that has received Health Ministry approval," said importer Moshe Shlomovitz.

The Health Ministry responded, "The ban on importing electronic cigarettes to Israel will be all-encompassing."

Like the FDA, it has warned citizens against using them.

Nonetheless, ministry officials said, they cannot prevent the sale of products that already have been imported.

Importers said the ban would boost traditional tobacco products, even though these are more harmful than their plastic counterparts.

"It's absurd that it's legal to smoke real cigarettes, with the 400 poisonous substances in them, but when it comes to electronic cigarettes, which don't even emit smoke, the Health Ministry says, 'oy, oy, oy, it causes cancer,'" said Dr. Shlomo Koenig, CEO of the importer Avco.

Nonetheless, Avco announced yesterday it would suspend electronic cigarette sales for several days "in order to compile additional proof that there are no carcinogenic substances in Avco cigarettes."

Avco representatives pointed to the Environmental Protection Ministry certification it received last year that stated its electronic cigarettes do not contain poisonous substances.

Even before the Health Ministry ban, electronic cigarette fans found it difficult to indulge their habit, as the sale of refill nicotine containers was never approved. They have to resort to nicotine-free fillings, or buying the real thing illegally in Israel or through Chinese Web sites.

"Ultimately, this is a more complex business than I had thought," said Yinon Horowitz, who bought a Ruyan electronic cigarette set two months ago hoping it would help him quit smoking. However, he has had a hard time switching over from regular cigarettes.

"You have to take out the container and refill it. The nicotine-free filling they sell in Israel leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and for the nicotine fillings you have to search through all kinds of dubious Chinese Web sites, and you don't know what they'll send you," he said.

The Environmental Protection Ministry said regarding Avco electronic cigarettes that it "did not authorize the product's use. A ministry expert examined the device's ingredients only regarding dangerous substances."

The Ruyan company responded that it "was the first company to launch electronic cigarettes in Israel, and that was only after we received permission from the Health Ministry department of pharmaceuticals regarding the product's safety."

"Ruyan cigarettes do not contain the dangerous ingredients the FDA mentioned in the report it released last week," it said.