Some choose electronic cigarettes

TAMPA - Greg Mullins is like most smokers, the oral fixation of lighting up eases tension.

Mullins said his addiction was so bad that he smoked about 30 cigarettes a day.

"I would wake up some morning coughing up blood. Not think twice about it, light up another Newport. Just part of the addiction, you know," Mullins told FOX 13.

But that all changed five months ago, when Mullins discovered a tobacco free electronic cigarette.

"I couldn't smoke in my car. I couldn't smoke in my house. With this it doesn't leave a smell in my car or house, my clothes," Mullins said. My breath doesn't smell. So it really is the perfect thing."

The electronic cigarette battery is operated, and a replicable nicotine filter is attached to the end. For those trying to kick the habit all together, customers can buy flavored filters without the nicotine.

And even with Florida's indoor smoking ban, these devices are allowed.

"What you see when someone is smoking this is water vapor. It's completely odorless. So someone next to you would not be bothered by second hand smoke," Danielle Steingraber, White Cloud Cigarette owner, said.

Some countries have issued advisories against electronic cigarettes warning the product is not a healthier alternative to smoking tobacco cigarettes. The U.S. has not approved it as a smoking cessation product.
 

Hear what local researchers are saying about the electronic cigarettes.