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• YOFFE: Where There's E-Smoke . . . Should I be ostracized for smoking electronic cigarettes? 

One day, I saw at a mall kiosk the perfect solution for satisfying Obama's cravings while allowing him to remain at work in the Oval Office: the electronic cigarette. It was clear that my patriotic duty as the Human Guinea Pig was to test this device as a proxy for the president. I would try smoking electronically in places that banned the real thing, which meant nearly every place in Washington, D.C., and my neighboring home county, since both have some of the most restrictive smoking laws in the country.

As I approached the Smoking Everywhere kiosk at Westfield Montgomery mall, the young woman selling e-cigarettes took a deep inhale of one and let out what looked like a cloud of smoke. She was "vaping," . . .

Dr. Saul Shiffman, an expert on nicotine addiction at the University of Pittsburgh, says the manufacturers are pushing their products as both a way to quit smoking and a way to keep smoking, which is problematic. He echoes Henningfield's safety concerns, "How do you know what chemicals are being dissolved and conveyed? Or that they're not full of bacteria that [are] setting up residence in your lungs? When you buy this, you're becoming the guinea pig." Exactly! (I was somewhat relieved to see the Ruyan Group paid for a New Zealand researcher to test its product, and he found it to be safe.) . . .

Considering the various downsides—bad breath, headaches, the FDA says they're illegal—perhaps the e-cigarette is not the answer to our president's surreptitious vice. So, Mr. Obama, when you're at your desk and you get that insatiable craving, do all of us a favor, stay where you are and pop a piece of nicotine gum.

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