From the AZ daily star, not as anti as I expected.
azstarnet.com
New workplace issue: If there's no smoke, is it smoking?
Nicotine-delivering e-cigarettes may pose a new problem for HR
By Dan Sorenson
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.22.2009
advertisement
Attention anti-smoking zealots: Before you pummel that diner lighting up and taking a deep, satisfying drag in the next booth, make sure he's not "smoking" an e-cigarette.
Virtual smokers are getting a smokeless nicotine dose delivered by the cigarette-style, tobacco-free device known generically as an e-cigarette.
E-cigarette is the generic term for any of several cigarette-shaped devices that atomize small doses of liquid nicotine when the "smoker" inhales. Some models have a red LED on one end that lights up when the "smoker" inhales from the other. A small rechargeable battery atomizes the nicotine, which is contained in a section of the e-cig that looks like a filter. The cartridges come in different nicotine strengths and flavors.
Although there is no smoke, there may be traces of the vaporized dose of nicotine visible when the e-smoker exhales.
E-cigs are packed with potential for social confrontation and pose a minefield of touchy questions and problems for employers and human resources managers.
"Absolutely," said njoy e-cigarette executive Jack Leadbeater when asked if he has "e-smoked" on commercial planes and gotten a reaction.
"If he's a non-smoker, definitely you get the hairy eyeball," said Leadbeater. "But, by the end of the flight, they're asking you where to get one."
Leadbeater is president and chief executive officer of Sottera Inc., the Scottsdale-based corporation behind njoy's international operations.
njoy, produced in China, is one of a number of e-cigarettes on the market in the U.S. and abroad.
TSC Group, of Charlotte, N.C., is the U.S. distributor for NJOY. And right now, says TSC President and CEO John Wiesehan Jr., they're in short supply. So much so that big-box powerhouse Costco has an out-of-stock notice that pops up if you inquire about NJOY at Costco.com.
Wiesehan said that will be resolved soon and NJOY will be available to the 45 million U.S. smokers Leadbeater carefully says want to save money, be able to "smoke" anywhere and avoid inconveniences like burning little holes in their clothes, stinking up their cars and annoying nearby non-smokers with secondhand smoke.
No mention of using them to kick the habit, avoid the carcinogens produced by burning tobacco and its additives, nor any talk of health benefits.
No, the sellers say, health claims would require Food and Drug Administration approval after clinical trials to document any claims of health benefits.
Fifty-year smoker Niles Robinson, a three-pack-a-day man, figured out the health benefits for himself.
"I smoked for 50 years. I'm 64, I started when I was 14," said Robinson, an accountant at La Posada at Park Centre, 350 E. Morningside Road, a Green Valley continuing-care retirement community.
Robinson said he can't count the number of times he's tried to quit, and failed.
"I've tried patches. I've tried nicotine gum. I've got to tell you, it's the first thing I've ever found that I think could take me off cigarettes," he said.
"I had a heart attack a few years ago that they said was from cigarettes. I think it was from the Wildcats. I was watching a game."
Robinson said he's down to a pack and a half of cigarettes a day, the rest of his craving satisfied by his e-cigarette.
"When you need a cigarette, you need a cigarette. This thing does that for you," he said.
"I know nicotine's not good for you, but neither is caffeine. I'm going to be without the tars, the carcinogens, the acids, all the things that they say are bad. I really think it's going to help me out."
Robinson chose an NJOY model that looks like a fountain pen rather than a cigarette to avoid having people think he's lighting up the real thing. He says he can sit in his office and satisfy his nicotine craving. Or, if he does it in public, it just looks like he's got a pen in his mouth.
Robinson said La Posada is a total non-smoking campus; smokers can't light up even on the farthest reaches of the property.
He said he was using his pen-style NJOY e-cig at work and knew of eight or 10 other employees who were trying it. Up until Thursday, when he took off work to watch the NCAA men's basketball tournament at home, he said he hadn't been told he couldn't e-smoke at La Posada.
"We're a tobacco-free campus. They have to wait until their lunch break and go off campus," said Jim Casanova, La Posada's director of human resources.
"But with no tobacco in it, it really doesn't fall under the tobacco policy. But if you said it's OK, then do you let a cook use one where they're preparing food? Probably not. How about someone in a private office? What's right and what's appropriate? Is it a drug? That's what we're wrestling with."
The HR nightmare doesn't stop there, said Casanova.
"When we went to a non-smoking campus, we provided smoking-cessation services to them, including nicotine patches, and we paid for that. We would pay up to $100 and we said if someone tried something other than that, we pay for a portion of that. The question is, if this is a smoking-cessation technique, do we pay for it?"
Because, on the other hand, "someone may use it to smoke forever," said Casanova.
"Secondhand smoke? It is a vapor," he went on. "Do I want to have to breathe your vapor?"
E-cigarettes raise a lot of non-burning questions that employers may soon face, at least if they catch on. But not one local business or government agency contacted about policy on smokeless delivery devices had even heard of them, except for Park Place, where they are sold.
"Nobody seems to have heard about these e-cigarettes," said Tucson Medical Center spokeswoman Julia Strange. "Fundamentally, it would not violate our policy, which is banning tobacco products. . . . It actually encourages people to use nicotine replacements."
Although NJOY's products are displayed and sold at a kiosk at Park Place, 5870 E. Broadway, the mall's manager said he hadn't heard about them being used on the premises.
"We really haven't witnessed a whole lot of people using the product at the mall," said mall senior general manager Jim Heilmann, "but, since it isn't smoking, we wouldn't have a problem."
Heilmann said the kiosk, which is staffed only Friday through Sunday, is leased by two men from Hermosillo, Sonora. Attempts to contact them were unsuccessful.
"This is the first I've ever heard of it," said Pima County Human Resources Director Gwyn Hatcher. Then again, she doesn't keep up with smoking trends. "I'm a reformed smoker. I quit 28 years ago," she said.
And if any of the city of Tucson's 5,000-some employees is using e-cigs on the job, city Human Resources Director Cindy Bezaury hasn't heard about it.
"I would have to figure out how it's treated," Bezaury said. "We don't regulate the use of nicotine gum."
It was just as big a mystery in some parts of the private sector.
"With 11,500 employees, you'd think we'd have heard of it," said Raytheon Missile Systems spokesman John Patterson, but he hadn't.
Patterson speculated the product might be helpful in cutting down on smoke breaks, which are only allowed outside on the defense contractor's Tucson campus.
"People take breaks," he said. "As a government contractor, we account for all of our time. So smokers account for that time."
azstarnet.com
New workplace issue: If there's no smoke, is it smoking?
Nicotine-delivering e-cigarettes may pose a new problem for HR
By Dan Sorenson
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.22.2009
advertisement
Attention anti-smoking zealots: Before you pummel that diner lighting up and taking a deep, satisfying drag in the next booth, make sure he's not "smoking" an e-cigarette.
Virtual smokers are getting a smokeless nicotine dose delivered by the cigarette-style, tobacco-free device known generically as an e-cigarette.
E-cigarette is the generic term for any of several cigarette-shaped devices that atomize small doses of liquid nicotine when the "smoker" inhales. Some models have a red LED on one end that lights up when the "smoker" inhales from the other. A small rechargeable battery atomizes the nicotine, which is contained in a section of the e-cig that looks like a filter. The cartridges come in different nicotine strengths and flavors.
Although there is no smoke, there may be traces of the vaporized dose of nicotine visible when the e-smoker exhales.
E-cigs are packed with potential for social confrontation and pose a minefield of touchy questions and problems for employers and human resources managers.
"Absolutely," said njoy e-cigarette executive Jack Leadbeater when asked if he has "e-smoked" on commercial planes and gotten a reaction.
"If he's a non-smoker, definitely you get the hairy eyeball," said Leadbeater. "But, by the end of the flight, they're asking you where to get one."
Leadbeater is president and chief executive officer of Sottera Inc., the Scottsdale-based corporation behind njoy's international operations.
njoy, produced in China, is one of a number of e-cigarettes on the market in the U.S. and abroad.
TSC Group, of Charlotte, N.C., is the U.S. distributor for NJOY. And right now, says TSC President and CEO John Wiesehan Jr., they're in short supply. So much so that big-box powerhouse Costco has an out-of-stock notice that pops up if you inquire about NJOY at Costco.com.
Wiesehan said that will be resolved soon and NJOY will be available to the 45 million U.S. smokers Leadbeater carefully says want to save money, be able to "smoke" anywhere and avoid inconveniences like burning little holes in their clothes, stinking up their cars and annoying nearby non-smokers with secondhand smoke.
No mention of using them to kick the habit, avoid the carcinogens produced by burning tobacco and its additives, nor any talk of health benefits.
No, the sellers say, health claims would require Food and Drug Administration approval after clinical trials to document any claims of health benefits.
Fifty-year smoker Niles Robinson, a three-pack-a-day man, figured out the health benefits for himself.
"I smoked for 50 years. I'm 64, I started when I was 14," said Robinson, an accountant at La Posada at Park Centre, 350 E. Morningside Road, a Green Valley continuing-care retirement community.
Robinson said he can't count the number of times he's tried to quit, and failed.
"I've tried patches. I've tried nicotine gum. I've got to tell you, it's the first thing I've ever found that I think could take me off cigarettes," he said.
"I had a heart attack a few years ago that they said was from cigarettes. I think it was from the Wildcats. I was watching a game."
Robinson said he's down to a pack and a half of cigarettes a day, the rest of his craving satisfied by his e-cigarette.
"When you need a cigarette, you need a cigarette. This thing does that for you," he said.
"I know nicotine's not good for you, but neither is caffeine. I'm going to be without the tars, the carcinogens, the acids, all the things that they say are bad. I really think it's going to help me out."
Robinson chose an NJOY model that looks like a fountain pen rather than a cigarette to avoid having people think he's lighting up the real thing. He says he can sit in his office and satisfy his nicotine craving. Or, if he does it in public, it just looks like he's got a pen in his mouth.
Robinson said La Posada is a total non-smoking campus; smokers can't light up even on the farthest reaches of the property.
He said he was using his pen-style NJOY e-cig at work and knew of eight or 10 other employees who were trying it. Up until Thursday, when he took off work to watch the NCAA men's basketball tournament at home, he said he hadn't been told he couldn't e-smoke at La Posada.
"We're a tobacco-free campus. They have to wait until their lunch break and go off campus," said Jim Casanova, La Posada's director of human resources.
"But with no tobacco in it, it really doesn't fall under the tobacco policy. But if you said it's OK, then do you let a cook use one where they're preparing food? Probably not. How about someone in a private office? What's right and what's appropriate? Is it a drug? That's what we're wrestling with."
The HR nightmare doesn't stop there, said Casanova.
"When we went to a non-smoking campus, we provided smoking-cessation services to them, including nicotine patches, and we paid for that. We would pay up to $100 and we said if someone tried something other than that, we pay for a portion of that. The question is, if this is a smoking-cessation technique, do we pay for it?"
Because, on the other hand, "someone may use it to smoke forever," said Casanova.
"Secondhand smoke? It is a vapor," he went on. "Do I want to have to breathe your vapor?"
E-cigarettes raise a lot of non-burning questions that employers may soon face, at least if they catch on. But not one local business or government agency contacted about policy on smokeless delivery devices had even heard of them, except for Park Place, where they are sold.
"Nobody seems to have heard about these e-cigarettes," said Tucson Medical Center spokeswoman Julia Strange. "Fundamentally, it would not violate our policy, which is banning tobacco products. . . . It actually encourages people to use nicotine replacements."
Although NJOY's products are displayed and sold at a kiosk at Park Place, 5870 E. Broadway, the mall's manager said he hadn't heard about them being used on the premises.
"We really haven't witnessed a whole lot of people using the product at the mall," said mall senior general manager Jim Heilmann, "but, since it isn't smoking, we wouldn't have a problem."
Heilmann said the kiosk, which is staffed only Friday through Sunday, is leased by two men from Hermosillo, Sonora. Attempts to contact them were unsuccessful.
"This is the first I've ever heard of it," said Pima County Human Resources Director Gwyn Hatcher. Then again, she doesn't keep up with smoking trends. "I'm a reformed smoker. I quit 28 years ago," she said.
And if any of the city of Tucson's 5,000-some employees is using e-cigs on the job, city Human Resources Director Cindy Bezaury hasn't heard about it.
"I would have to figure out how it's treated," Bezaury said. "We don't regulate the use of nicotine gum."
It was just as big a mystery in some parts of the private sector.
"With 11,500 employees, you'd think we'd have heard of it," said Raytheon Missile Systems spokesman John Patterson, but he hadn't.
Patterson speculated the product might be helpful in cutting down on smoke breaks, which are only allowed outside on the defense contractor's Tucson campus.
"People take breaks," he said. "As a government contractor, we account for all of our time. So smokers account for that time."
