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Outside the Smokeless Image store on Washington Street in Hoboken, Robert Perpepaj, of Lyndhurst, tries out and compares different flavors of electronic cigarettes. Perpepaj a pack-a-day smoker, was interested in e-digs because he saw a co-worker smoke them and has been looking for a healthier alternative since he stopped smoking cigarettes.

( Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-Ledger)

Last month, billionaire entrepreneur Sean Parker bought a stake in Arizona-based e-cigarette maker NJOY. Tobacco industry giants Altria, parent company of Phillip Morris, and Reynolds American, maker of Camel cigarettes, have introduced their own e-cigarettes. The devices even had an official presence this year at Bonnaroo, the enormous four-day Tennessee music festival popular with the 20 to 35 age demographic, as Blu Electronic Cigarettes joined a list of the event's corporate sponsors.

But the burgeoning $1 billion a year industry could all come to an abrupt halt if the Federal Drug Administration, which has had official authority over tobacco since 2010, moves to regulate e-cigarettes.

"Right now we regulate cigarettes, loose tobacco and smokeless tobacco, but the law does give us a process for adding more products to our jurisdiction," said FDA spokeswoman Jennifer Haliski. "The FDA has publicly said that we intend to make every product that meets the statutory definition of a tobacco product of our authority."

For now, that means the e-cigarette industry has to avoid so much as hinting it is a smoking cessation device. The FDA currently regulates nicotine replacement therapies, known as NTRs, such as gum, patches and lozenges

"One way a lot of people interpret 'therapeutic' is if the manufacturer says you can use the product to quit smoking, as a cessation device," Haliski said, "then that would bring it under our jurisdiction."

Perhaps it helps that e-cigarette puffers don't call themselves smokers. Vapers is the preferred term of the estimated 3.5 million American e-cigarette users.

Although New Jersey is one of three states that prohibit people from using e-cigarettes in enclosed public places like bars, restaurants and office buildings, the industry has a significant presence in the state through brick and mortar retailers, a manufacturer of the nicotine-delivering liquid and three companies that make the devices. LOGIC Technology in Livingston, the Halo Company in Pompton Plains and Eonsmoke in Garfield all market the devices, battery-operated tubes that turn liquid nicotine into a vapor.

For them, the industry has never looked more promising, even though it is dwarfed by Big Tobacco, which had U.S. sales of $83 billion last year.

Growing sales

Smokeless Image, a small Hoboken shop that exclusively sells e-cigarettes and their accessories, would be dealt a huge blow if the FDA passed a rule and pulled e-cigarettes while they were put through clinical trials to determine health risks.

After opening last August, co-owner Antoinette Lanza said, the shop reached profitability in six months and expects to double its revenue this year.

Even though she doesn't actually make the products her store sells, she still has to be careful about what she tells potential customers.

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"I have to say it's assumed with e-cigarettes you'll continue to use them once you start," she said. "A lot of the people who vape continue to do so."

Lanza declined to say whether any of her customers use e-cigarettes, which deliver varying levels of nicotine, to wean themselves off the substance.

If someone who has never smoked comes in looking for a beginners kit, which starts at $20, she tries to dissuade them.

"If they insist, we do our best to steer them toward the liquid that has no nicotine in it," she said. "I'm a former smoker and part of the vaping community, so I understand the responsibility we have in representing what this is to people."

LOGIC toes the same blurry line in marketing its e-cigarettes, which are manufactured overseas, purchased here by distributors and then sold to customers from convenience store shelves across the country.

LOGIC has to rely on other techniques, like cost comparisons with regular cigarettes, to draw customers to their product, which is designed to mimic a regular cigarette.

It's seen rapid success in the emerging industry, said CEO Eli Alelov. He and his co-founder, Howard Panes, have watched their $20,000 investment grow 600 percent in less than three years and expect to see $45 million in sales by the end of 2013.

While Alelov disagrees with bans on using e-cigarettes in places that serve alcohol -- New Jersey has had such a law on the books since 2009 -- he would welcome some FDA oversight.

"As long as it's not too heavily influenced by lobbyists that represent tobacco companies," said Alelov. "I can support certain things, like regulating packaging, warnings, age restrictions, the way they're displayed in stores."

Store co-owner Antoinette Lanza helps Michael Pesci purchase one of his first electronic cigarette inside the Smokeless Image store on Washington Street in Hoboken.

More users

E-cigarette consumers feel they have a stake in this, too, said Greg Conley, legislative director at the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association, an advocacy group for e-cigarette users, because many would be reluctant to go back to smoking cigarettes.

"Any rule that the FDA comes up with should not make e-cigarettes harder to get and not apply the same approval process to e-cigarettes as regular cigarettes," he said. "We are hopeful at this time that the FDA will not institute a rule that would essentially ban all these products that have been introduced since 2007."

For Michael Pesci of Warren Township, the difference between the two is clear. He visited Smokeless Image on Wednesday to buy a "spinner," one of the shop's more popular products because a dial at one end allows users to regulate how much vapor the device produces.

"I started on a Blu electronic cigarette I bought at a convenience store. Then I saw my buddy with one of these nicer things," he said, pointing to the case of multicolored tubes that house the batteries used to vaporize e-cigarette liquid.

A smoker for seven years, Pesci said his girlfriend convinced him to take his first electronic puff. Although he could use the e-cigarette inside without producing the amount of smoke that forces most cigarette smokers outside, he uses vaping as an excuse to get some air.

"After doing this for a while, when I have a cigarette I definitely notice just how harsh they are," he said. "I'm sure they'll come out with ways these are bad for you, too, but as far as I'm concerned this is way better."

Editor's Note: Jennifer Haliski's quote has been changed to more accurately represent the Federal Drug Administration's policies regarding tobacco products and cigarettes.

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