Despite a known link between the drug Champix and psychiatric issues (including suicidal thoughts!!!), MedSafe approved the drug for use in New Zealand. This is just another reason why the e-cigarette is the way to go! Read the rest »

Click here to read an article introducing the e-cigarette concept - source: www.nzherald.co.nz

Click here to view an NZ Herald article regarding the testing taking place at Auckland University

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Click the icon above to listen to the Radio New Zealand interview with Dr. Hayden McRobbie, Principal Investigator, Clinical Trials Research Unit, University of Auckland.

Source CNNMoney.com
A Chinese company is seeking FDA approval for a battery-powered cigarette that delivers nicotine without the toxins, reports Business 2.0 Magazine.

For smokers who want to quit, there are pills, patches, and gum. But how about an electronic nicotine delivery device that looks and feels like smoking — without the smell or the carcinogens?

That’s what Hong Kong-based Golden Dragon Group is selling. Known as Ruyan (meaning “like smoking”), the electronic cigarette is a $208 battery-powered atomizer.

Cartridges containing pure nicotine, available in three strengths and good for some 350 puffs each, cost about $4.

Inhale, and the Ruyan — powered by a Motorola (Charts, Fortune 500) chip — turns the nicotine into smokelike vapor. “We don’t claim smoking cessation, just smoking substitution,” says Scott Fraser, vice president of Golden Dragon subsidiary SBT, which came up with the Ruyan. Read the rest »

Smokers are being asked to trial their habit with an electronic cigarette which delivers nicotine but not the harmful effects of tobacco, in an Auckland University study.

Researchers from the Clinical Trials Research Unit at the university are calling for volunteers from the Auckland area for the trial.

The trial is one of two aimed specifically at smokers that the university is undertaking .

Read the rest »

HONG KONG (Reuters Life!) - It feels like a cigarette, looks like a cigarette but it isn’t bad for your health.

A Chinese company marketing the world’s first “electronic” cigarette hopes to double sales this year as it expands overseas and as some of China’s legions of smokers try to quit.

Golden Dragon Group Ltd’s Ruyan cigarettes are battery-powered, cigarette-shaped devices that deliver nicotine to inhalers in a bid to emulate actual smoking.

“The nicotine is delivered to the lungs within 7 to 10 seconds,” said Scott Fraser, Vice President of SBT Co. Ltd., the Beijing-based firm that first developed the electronic cigarette technology in 2003 and which is now controlled by Golden Dragon. Read the rest »