E-cigarettes: Where there's no smoke, there's still fire

This photo illustration shows a woman smoking an electronic cigarette. E-cigarettes first appeared on the market four years ago.

Electronic cigarettes -- small, battery-operated devices that heat nicotine into a vapor that’s inhaled -- have stirred up controversy as new studies questioning their use emerge.

The gadgets are seen as safer because they contain no tobacco and far fewer chemicals, but researchers say they may addict kids to nicotine or irritate bystanders, USA TODAY reported.

When researchers from the University of Minnesota interviewed 66 Americans, ages 18-26, half of them said they would try e-cigarettes if offered them by a friend, USA TODAY reported.

Margo Gomes, a senior at Emerson College, said the only people she sees using e-cigarettes are between the ages of 21 and 25.

“I’ve been in movie theaters and restaurants where people have been smoking them,” Gomes said. “The times that I have seen people, they have been young adults.”

Still, Gomes said she thinks college students wouldn’t necessarily choose e-cigarettes over smoking.

“There is a kind of appeal in smoking a pack of cigarettes,” she said. “It’s a different experience.”

The price may also be a setback, Gomes said. Although e-cigarettes have gone down in price since they first appeared on the market four years ago, they can still cost up to hundreds of dollars.

“People don’t really sit down and think about how much they spend on packs of cigarettes and make an informed decision that e-cigarettes are cheaper,” she said. “I don’t even know if it would be cheaper, but it would be a really good marketing step if it was.”

Other college students said they also haven’t seen the appeal of e-cigarettes yet.

“I don’t see them around too much at school,” said Dylan Goldman, a junior at the University of Vermont. “They don’t cut it the same way a cig does.”

Goldman saw the product used a lot more when he was in high school, and said e-cigarettes were more attractive to kids at that age.

“I don’t know anyone above 16 years old who would want a grape-flavored cigarette,” Goldman said. “I feel like they sometimes are geared toward younger people since it’s so much easier to hide also.”

In 2010, only 750,000 e-cigarettes were sold, but the following year, sales more than doubled to 2.5 million, according to The Week magazine.

While traditional cigarette sales have been falling by 3-4% annually, the sales of smokeless products have grown 7.5% from 2010 to 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.

“If I smoked more, I would be more likely to smoke e-cigarettes than traditional cigarettes,” said Ben Hyland, a freshman at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.

Although not a consistent e-cigarette smoker, Hyland said he liked the feel of it and the different flavors -- in his case, chocolate.

“It’s a good option for people trying to quit smoking,” he said.

Becky Hayes is a Summer 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about her here.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.