Are they really safer than regular cigarettes? -Yes.

Though we are uncertain as to how safe they are, we are fairly sure that they are safer than smoking cigarettes. Part of our certainty derives from knowing how harmful regular smoking is. Almost anything is certain to be safer.

Almost anything else that is not acutely toxic (and we know the e-cigs are not) will be safer. Even if e-cigs are about ten times as harmful as smokeless tobacco, that still makes them about 1/10th as harmful as smoking. Smoking is just that bad.

First of all, there is no burning of any plant matter so all those combustion related carcinogens are no longer present. Of course, in most cases, nicotine is still present but, as we've written elsewhere, nicotine is one of the more benign elements in tobacco . All that remains is some uncertainty about the effects of propylene glycol with long term regular use.

However, though there is little danger in smoking e-cigarettes, there are some safety issues involved if people are using refillable versions and handling liquid nicotine. In the liquid form, nicotine is quite dangerous and any spills onto skin should be immediately washed off and certainly it should never be ingested.