Here, they find a correlation between e-cigarette use and higher and more sustained levels of smoking. But because this is a cross-sectional study, they cannot determine which came first. In other words, what is the direction of the causal relationship? Does the e-cigarette use precede, and cause, the smoking? Or does the smoking precede, and cause, the e-cigarette use?

The second of these two North Carolina debates is whether or not to impose their current 4.75% general state sales tax on the electronic cigarettes themselves, but doesn’t collect the federal or state excise tax on the nicotine containing e-liquid as it does on other nicotine related products. At the center of this issue is the fact that E-cigarettes do not contain or burn any tobacco. Rather, e-cigarettes use batteries to heat and vaporize a nicotine containing liquid or E-liquid. It is because of this, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration or FDA has labeled these devices as “tobacco products” which are subject to the federal excise tax. If this legislation is implemented in the 2014 summer short session, the expected revenue that it is projected to bring in by fiscal year 2016 is around $5 million a year.

Currently under consideration in several states, is legislation that would tax electronic cigarettes as traditional tobacco cigarettes, which would be much costlier for consumers. For example, North Carolina currently taxes consumers 45 cents per pack, or 12.8% of the cost of traditional cigarettes and other tobacco products like snuff, cigars and chewing tobacco. David Powers, VP of Government Relations for R.J. Reynolds a large backer of the proposed legislation state’s “many smokers are switching from tobacco cigarettes to e-cigarettes, adding “vapor devices carry less health risk because no tobacco smoke is produced.” “We don’t want to create disincentives for smokers to try it.”

Last week, three Democratic lawmakers -- Rep. Henry A. Waxman (CA), Sen. Tom Harkin (IA), and Rep. Peter Welch (VT) -- sent a to the Attorneys General in their states requesting that the AGs declare that electronic cigarettes fall under the terms of the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) signed in 1998 with the tobacco companies.

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