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The bottom line: Electronic cigarettes certainly have their appeal in a gadget-centric world, but many questions remain, says Thomas Eissenberg, director of the clinical behavioral pharmacology laboratory at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. For one thing, he says, e-cigarettes have never been studied for smoking cessation, so nobody knows if they are any more or less effective than other nicotine replacement products such as gums or patches.

Also, Eissenberg says, it's not very clear what smokers are getting when they take a drag on an e-cigarette. In a study published in July, Eissenberg and colleagues had 32 smokers take puffs on two brands of e-cigarettes, the NPRO with 18 mg. of nicotine and a model from Crown7 with 16 mg. Each smoker took 20 normal puffs, with a short break after the first 10. The study found that electronic cigarettes did reduce the urge to smoke, but, importantly, neither brand delivered measurable amounts of nicotine to the users' bloodstreams. Eissenberg suspects that the devices are so similar to cigarettes that they can help fill the psychological urge to smoke even if they don't provide much nicotine.

"I've been told that you can get nicotine from these things if you really work at it," Eissenberg adds. He believes it's possible that real-life users can get all the nicotine they need by drawing hard, inhaling deeply and taking many puffs. He's considering running a study under more realistic conditions with smokers who are already familiar with e-cigarettes.

In another study published in July, researchers at UC Riverside used a smoking machine to show that it takes more suction to get nicotine from an electronic cigarette than from a regular cigarette.

Eissenberg believes that electronic cigarettes may be worth a try for someone who wants to quit smoking. "Using it for six to eight weeks could be good," he says. But long-term use is another matter, he adds. Although propylene glycol is generally considered to be safe for humans, he warns that nobody knows the effects of deeply inhaling the compound for hours at a time on a daily basis. "I don't know that that's safer than cigarettes," he says.

Adam Leventhal, director of USC's health, emotion and addiction laboratory, says that electronic cigarettes are almost certainly safer than cigarettes. Still, he believes that nicotine patches and gums would probably be better options for anyone looking to quit smoking. Such products are regulated by the FDA, and users can be confident that they're getting the amount of nicotine that they expect. And because e-cigarettes are so much like regular cigarettes, he's concerned that they won't do much to break the actual habit of smoking. "We always tell people who are trying to quit smoking that they should get rid of anything that reminds them of smoking, including ashtrays and cigarettes," he says. "Electronic cigarettes could be a trigger."

Experts and policymakers who criticize electronic cigarettes are missing a great chance to improve public health, says Carl Phillips, a former associate professor of public health at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and creator of tobaccoharmreduction.org, an academic website that promotes alternatives to smoking.

He says the effects of propylene glycol should be studied, but he's confident that e-cigarettes are at least 95% safer than actual cigarettes. "If users are engaging in something that feels the same as smoking but doesn't involve any smoke, that's great," he says.