People who want to ban e-cigs are the useful idiots of Big Tobacco

[Waiting For Everyman]

116. But the majority of ecig vendors do not advertise.

Ecigs are a "ground up" phenomenon. They developed from users spreading the word, not from advertising campaigns pushing them. The vendors are still mostly small, and connected to their customers via websites. Most products are not available in retail stores either.

When big money, big tobacco, big pharma couldn't "beat" ecigs, they began "joining" them, by buying up these independent companies. That does not mean that the product originated from big tobacco, it absolutely did not. Most of the ecig community is still online, not retail and not advertising-driven.

(Btw to address a point that is often brought up, the juices which test with metal or chemical content are most often Chinese juices, because of the unavoidable environmental pollution there, and the lack of standards in addition to cutting every corner possible. So those test results are not surprising. However, most ecig users know of better quality alternatives which are made locally, and use and prefer them... including a heavy DIY base.)

The JAMA study in the link you cited above also had this to say...

At the same time, their article highlights the potential promise of ENDS (ecigs), with their use associated with greater interest in quitting among current young smokers. The same phenomena are seen among adult smokers...

The study does not state whether these young "gateway" users were exposed to real cigarettes in addition to ecigs. I would suspect that is so. The teenagers would be getting these ecigs from older family or friends who use them, because they are not sold to those un 18. This would imply use-influence in the teen's close circle, which imo is the reason for the experimentation, not simply the mere existence of ecigs which they go out and search for cold. I doubt that many teens would be affected in this way anyway, as there are not vast numbers of ecig users altogether.

Lastly, no one has yet died from an ecig. Until such harm can be proven, statements about it are pure speculation, not science. One thing we know for sure... if any harm is ever demonstrated it will be vastly less than the known effects of cigarettes. Adult smokers should have the right to reduce the risk to themelves by replacing an extemely dangerous substance with one which to date is known to be vastly safer.