Society

With its slim white body and glowing amber tip, it can easily pass as a regular cigarette. It even emits what look like curlicues of white smoke.

The Ruyan V8, which produces a nicotine-infused mist absorbed directly into the lungs, is just one of a rapidly growing array of electronic cigarettes attracting attention in China, the U.S. and elsewhere — and the scrutiny of world health officials.

Marketed as a healthier alternative to smoking and a potential way to kick the habit, the smokeless smokes have been distributed in swag bags at the British film awards and hawked at an international trade show.

Because no burning is involved, makers say there's no hazardous cocktail of cancer-causing chemicals and gases like those produced by a regular cigarette. There's no secondhand smoke, so they can be used in places where cigarettes are banned, the makers say.

Health authorities are questioning those claims.

The World Health Organization issued a statement in September warning there was no evidence to back up contentions that e-cigarettes are a safe substitute for smoking or a way to help smokers quit.

It also said companies should stop marketing them that way, especially since the product may undermine smoking prevention efforts because they look like the real thing and may lure nonsmokers, including children.

"There is not sufficient evidence that (they) are safe products for human consumption," Timothy O'Leary, a communications officer at the WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative in Geneva, said this week.

The laundry list of WHO's concerns includes the lack of conclusive studies and information about e-cigarette contents and their long-term health effects, he said.

Unlike other nicotine-replacement therapies such as patches for slow delivery through the skin and some inhalers and nasal sprays, e-cigarettes have not gone through rigorous testing, O'Leary said.

Nicotine is highly addictive and causes the release of the "feel good" chemical dopamine when it goes to the brain. It also increases heart rate and blood pressure and restricts blood to the heart muscle.

Ruyan — which means "like smoking" — introduced the world's first electronic cigarette in 2004. It has patented its ultrasonic atomizing technology, in which nicotine is dissolved in a cartridge containing propylene glycol, the liquid that is vaporized in smoke machines in nightclubs or theaters and is commonly used as a solvent in food.

When a person takes a drag on the battery-powered cigarette, the solution is pumped through the atomizer and comes out as an ultrafine spray that resembles smoke.

Hong Kong-based Ruyan contends the technology has been illegally copied by Chinese and foreign companies and is embroiled in several lawsuits. It's also battling questions about the safety of its products.

Most sales take place over the Internet, where hundreds of retailers tout their products. Their easy availability, O'Leary warns, "has elevated this to a pressing issue given its unknown safety and efficacy."

Prices range from about $60 to $240. Kits include battery chargers and cartridges that range in flavors (from fruit to menthol) and nicotine levels (from zero — basically a flavored mist — to 16 milligrams, higher than a regular cigarette.) The National Institutes of Health says regular cigarettes contain about 10 milligrams of nicotine.

On its Web site, Gamucci, a London-based manufacturer, features a woman provocatively displaying one of its e-cigs. "They look like, feel like and taste like traditional tobacco, yet they aren't," the blurb reads. "They are a truly healthier and satisfying alternative. Join the revolution today!"

Smoking Everywhere, a Florida-based company, proclaims it "a much better way to smoke!" while a clip on YouTube features an employee of the NJoy brand promoting its e-cigarettes at CES, the international consumer technology trade show.

Online sales make it even more difficult to regulate the industry, which still falls in a gray area in many countries.

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration has "detained and refused" several brands of electronic cigarettes because they were considered unapproved new drugs and could not be legally marketed in the country, said press officer Christopher Kelly.

He did not give more details, but said the determination of whether an e-cig is a drug is made on a case-by-case basis after the agency considers its intended use, labeling and advertising.

In Australia, the sale of electronic cigarettes containing nicotine is banned. In Britain, the products appear to be unregulated and are sold in pubs.

Smoking is tightly woven into the fabric of daily life in Ruyan's home turf of China, the world's largest tobacco market where about 2 trillion cigarettes are sold every year.

Tobacco sales, the biggest source of government revenue, brought in $61 billion in the first 11 months of last year, up 18 percent from 2007, the Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper said.

In a country where the cheapest brands of cigarettes cost about 20 cents a pack, the e-cig is far pricier. Ruyan's V8 costs $240 and includes batteries and 20 cartridges of nicotine solution, roughly the same number of puffs as 20 packs of tobacco cigarettes. The line has expanded to include cigars and pipes crafted from agate and rosewood.

Ruyan is suing a Beijing newspaper for questioning its safety and for claiming in 2006 that its products have more nicotine than regular cigarettes.

Miu Nam, Ruyan's executive director, blames the newspaper for a hit in sales and profits but declined to give details.

"We have to restore consumers' confidence, we have to clean up people's doubts," Miu said.

An operator at the Beijing Times refused to transfer calls seeking comment Friday to managers at the newspaper. A reporter said she had heard of the case but would not give any details.

Some international experts back Ruyan's claims its product is safe.

David Sweanor, an adjunct law professor at Ottawa University and former legal counsel of the Non Smokers Rights Association in Canada, said e-cigs have the potential to save lives.

With smoking, "it's the delivery system that's killing people," Sweanor said. "Anytime you suck smoke into your lungs you're going to do yourself a great deal of damage. Nicotine has some slight risks but they are minor compared to the risk of smoke in cigarettes."

Dr. Murray Laugesen, a New Zealand physician involved in tobacco control for 25 years who was commissioned by Ruyan to test its e-cigs, said he found "very little wrong" with them.

"It looks more like a cigarette and feels more like a cigarette than any other device so far and yet it does not cause the harm," he said. "It's the best substitute so far invented for tobacco cigarettes."

In the U.S, both Philip Morris USA and RJ Reynolds have introduced cigarettes that did not burn tobacco, but the technologies were very different from the e-cigarette. Neither has been successful.

In 2006, Philip Morris USA, test-marketed the Accord, which used a heating unit activated by puffing. RJ Reynolds introduced its cigarette, the Premier, in 1987 and still sells the Eclipse, which heats the tobacco rather than burning it. Sales are "not great," said spokesman David Howard.

Li Honglei, a fast-talking 28-year-old public relations manager in Beijing, has been smoking since he was in his teens and desperately wants to quit. He thinks he may have found his answer in Ruyan.

"I was intrigued by this new technology," said the pudgy, bespectacled Li as he surveyed products displayed in glass cases at Ruyan's brightly-lit shop in the capital. "I heard acupuncture is effective as well, but this method sounds more painless."

A man in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, surrendered to police on Tuesday because he was too hungry to keep hiding from authorities.

Zhang Xingzhi, 21, of Jintang county, attacked a stranger two days earlier at a friend's request and then ran away to Chengdu. He got a false report that the man died and he decided to give up since he ran out of money.

The man is expected to recover.

People who have lived for seven years cumulatively in Shanghai, China's leading economic hub, could have a chance to get permanent residence, under a regulation posted Monday on the municipal government website.

Applicants for resident status should also have participated in the social security system for seven years and paid taxes in Shanghai.

Other conditions include holding middle-level professional certificates and abiding by the country's "one-child" policy.

Under the regulation, the city will impose an unspecified quota on new permanent residents.

Only about 3,000 people are believed to have reached the required number of years of residence, and the number of those meeting all the qualifications would be even lower.

Shanghai mayor Han Zheng said Saturday in response to an online query that the city, with a population of 19 million, has 13 million permanent residents.

According a survey on Chinadaily.com.cn, 85% people thought this should apply to Beijing and other big Chinese cities!

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had a two-hour online chat with netizens here starting from 3 pm Saturday jointly hosted by the central government website and the Xinhua website.

The two portals, the central government website (www.gov.cn) and the Xinhua News Agency website (www.xinhuanet.com), jointly held the interview with Premier Wen, which was live shown in both texts and videos.

This was the first online chat involving Premier Wen and the public and was the second high-profile online discussion by top Chinese leaders. President Hu Jintao had a brief Q&A with netizens at the website People's Daily in June last year.

Wen's chat with netizens came just days before the annual session of the National People's Congress and that of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing.

This year's "two sessions", convened at a time when the global financial crisis is still spreading, is expected to focus on thorny issues such as escalating jobless rate, social security, medical care, and corruption.

These issues are also well reflected in the nearly 90,000 questions thrown to Wen in the chatroom from netizens around the country.

Govt preparing for officials to declare assets

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the government is making "active preparations" for officials to declare their assets amid efforts to combat corruption.

"We need to promote transparency of government affairs and also need to make public officials' assets," he said.

"Such a declaration system must be established and carried out so as to produce substantial results," he said.

"It should be a major move to fight against corruption." Wen said the most important thing in combating corruption is to establish a good system that can prevent power from being too centralized without restriction.

"Only power is restricted can corruption be prevented fundamentally," he added. Earlier this month, authorities in Altay Prefecture in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region publicly released a list of the assets of more than 1,000 current and retired officials.

It was hailed as forerunner in the country's declaration system of officials' assets.

Also Saturday, China's top legislature approved a number of criminal law amendments including anti-graft moves.

A new amendment bans relatives of or people who have close relations with government employees from conducting corrupt deals between the employee and bribe-givers.

Offenders in "very serious cases" could face a minimum jail term of seven years, according to the amendment.

Proposed punishments also include fines and confiscation of personal property.