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• Up in e-smoke? 

All smokers will be intrigued by the advertisements promising them they can smoke anywhere, as those hanging next to cigarette packs at petrol stations in Cairo do. Featuring a woman wearing dark lipstick and puffing what appears to be smoke, after further enquiry it turns out that the "smoke" is not regular cigarette smoke. A salesperson gets out a small black box and demonstrates the "electronic cigarette" or e- cig. Does it sell? Apparently so. . . .

"We are concerned about the matter, and so is the Egyptian Ministry of Health," said Fatima El-Awa, WHO regional advisor, in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly. "We have given our opinion to countries in the region, and as a result Saudi Arabia has already prohibited the sale of the electronic cigarette, and Bahrain has set restrictions on its purchase," she says. In El-Awa's view, the e-cig is not healthy. "This product is being promoted with the claim that it is an effective measure to quit smoking, or as a safe method of smoking because it does not expose others to the danger of secondhand smoke," she says. "Yet, it has not been scientifically studied."

According to El-Awa, research has not been done to identify possible hazards of the e-cig. Although it is being promoted as a tobacco product, it is actually a pharmaceutical product, she says, as it contains nicotine, which is a drug. . . .

Nevertheless, according to the man in charge of trying to stop Egyptians from smoking, Mohamed Mehrez, director of the Tobacco Control Department at the Ministry of Health, smoking is still smoking whatever form it takes. "We take the WHO and FDA recommendations very seriously," Mehrez says, "and they have shown that these products negatively affect users' health, as well as the health of passive smokers around them."

The problem, as Mehrez sees it, is that e-cigs are creating a new generation of smokers.

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