Having a smoke and playing, too

Bars hit by tobacco ban sell device that satisfies cravings, complies with law

Steve Marcus

Sierra Gold bar host Tina M. Carline “smokes” a cigarette substitute that produces water vapor instead of smoke and is allowed where smoking isn’t.

By Liz Benston (contact)

Saturday, June 7, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Steve Marcus

NJOY is a battery-powered, microelectronic device that delivers nicotine via water vapor to the user's lungs. There is no smoke, making it acceptable in places where smoking is banned. The device costs about $110 and cartridges are sold separately.

Check out Sharon Cottrell’s cigarette.

It’s not, really. And it gets her around Nevada’s no-smoking laws.

The thing she’s holding between her fingers and drawing to her mouth looks like a pen. It’s got a battery. And that’s not smoke but what’s left of water vapor that carries nicotine from a cartridge into the user’s lungs.

Faux cigarettes are now showing up across Las Vegas.

“It’s awesome,” Cottrell said of her skinny little nicotine machine. “There are all these places where you can’t smoke. I’m getting what I need from the nicotine. I like being able to ‘smoke’ in my home and in my car without having the smoke smell.”

Cottrell bought her device, called NJOY, at JJ’s Tavern, one of 36 Las Vegas-area taverns, including PTs and Sierra Gold, that are owned by Golden Gaming and are pushing the devices.

More than half of Golden’s taverns have gone smoke-free since a voter-supported smoking ban took effect in December 2006.

For Golden, NJOY is a way to keep smokers legally in its nonsmoking bars.

Dragging on the device beats stepping outside a bar on a 100-degree day to smoke a real cigarette, said Christopher Abraham, vice president of marketing for Golden Gaming.

Abraham said the devices are “selling like hotcakes” at its three casinos in Colorado, where a smoking ban began in January.

Golden is selling the device for about $40 less than the product’s retail price of $110, with bigger discounts for its loyalty club members. Cartridges for the device are sold separately.

The Southern Nevada Health District says NJOY complies with smoking bans but wouldn’t comment on the pros and cons of the product.

NJOY was developed by patent attorneys in Scottsdale, Ariz., who saw a marketing opportunity with the spread of smoking bans across the country. Unclear are the device’s potential health benefits — users aren’t inhaling carcinogenic smoke — or any long-term detrimental effects of inhaling nicotine through it.

A light on the device blinks when the user has inhaled the equivalent of one cigarette or a pack of cigarettes. And though the devices are marketed as substitutes for cigarettes and not cessation devices, smokers trying to wean themselves from cigarettes can buy low-dose nicotine cartridges or even cartridges with no nicotine added.

The American Cancer Society hasn’t exactly welcomed the devices: “While products such as NJOY may help someone avoid withdrawal symptoms while in a nonsmoking environment and also avoid harming nonsmokers, there are no reliable data available concerning the health effects of using NJOY and there are data which suggest that using such products may reduce a smoker’s incentive to quit altogether,” said Thomas J. Glynn, director of cancer science and trends for the American Cancer Society.

But Smoke-Free Gaming of Colorado Chairwoman Stephanie Steinberg, who is pushing for smoking bans in casinos nationwide, says the product has promise.

“As long as a product like this isn’t harmful to other people we don’t find anything negative about it,” Steinberg said.

The product doesn’t need approval from the Food and Drug Administration because it’s not a smoking cessation device and does not claim any health benefits in its advertising.

Golden’s taverns, where employees get to know their regulars over the course of years, are an invaluable test market for NJOY products, the manufacturer says.

Golden is going one step further by allowing its employees to “smoke” on the job. Bartenders who smoke can puff on an NJOY between serving drinks — satisfying their cravings as well as initiating inquisitive looks, and questions, from customers.

Derek Stemm, general manager of a nonsmoking PT’s Pub on Warm Springs Road, has sold about a dozen devices to his customers.

“Every response I’ve gotten back has all been positive,” Stemm said. “People are now taking it home with them, smoking it in their car, their house, at their desk at work. It’s unbelievable.”

NJOY manufacturer Sottera views Golden as the tip of the iceberg in tapping a rich vein of smokers: the ones who gamble but are threatened by the growing number of smoking bans.

The company also sells the product in casino retail shops and some retail chains nationwide.

Chief Executive Jack Leadbeater says he’s in discussions with major Las Vegas casinos that are testing them with a few of their high rollers.

“They allow them to smoke on their (casino) floors but they don’t want them smoking in their rooms, which is a hard thing to pull off,” Leadbeater said.

Discussion: 10 comments so far…

By ZeddyBear

6/7/08 at 5:25 a.m.

Suggest removal

I am sure some old lady with her grandchildren will oppose this device, and then the voters will decide that this device should be banned, too. It will take time, but wait for the non-smoking public to put an end to this alternative.
By 100IQ

6/7/08 at 6:38 p.m.

Suggest removal

1) Does nictoine (and addiction to same) cause paranoia now?

2) You are not going to smoke and you are going to like it.

3) I am not getting tired of laws against smoking, I love it. We control you, everywhere. (See #1 above) (and you are going to like it)
By casinokid

6/7/08 at 8 p.m.

Suggest removal

Hmmmm i want to see this in the news when someone uses this thing on a plane!
Lotts of free advertisment.

Casinokid
By 100IQ

6/7/08 at 8:08 p.m.

Suggest removal

Furthermore, the smoking restrictions come from a referendum voted on by the people. The people have spoken in Nevada and they are speaking all across this nation. Health is in. Why do we need to train and utilize health care workers to take care of a man made problem (nicotine addiction). Our energy and money should go towards addressing health problems that require unique solutions. If everyone quit smoking all of the heart, lung, and associated health problems due to cigarettes would go away completely (eventually).
By Hub

6/8/08 at 6:04 p.m.

Suggest removal

IF this isn't smoking, should I expect to be seeing this on air planes too? It's a technicality, it's smoking, and it's doomed. Seriously, quit destroying your health, my health and our kids health.
By runningnv

6/9/08 at 2:27 p.m.

Suggest removal

You are not interested in health, you are interested in controlling other people and keeping the limelight off of how obese you and your children are.
By Dreams2Fly

12/29/08 at 10:55 a.m.

Suggest removal

I'm not a smoker but I've been around them all my life, healthy ones and sickly ones.

But I just have to wonder, how many nay-sayers and health nuts are sitting drinking a caffeinated product as they complain about smoking. Nicotine in its pure form isn't any more dangerous - and possibly less so - to the body than caffeine. They're both stimulants which affect the body similarly. In this product, the delivery source is even the same: water. So give up ALL your caffeine for a few weeks then come back and tell me how bad smokers are for seeking an alternative to the traditional delivery method of their drug of choice.

I mean really. Caffeinated candy and chewing gum? Mega energy 'shots'? We are a society of stimulant junkies, with each generation needing every higher doses to get the same 'buzz'. Check your own intake before condemning someone else. Stones in glass houses and all that.

(And, no, there's no caffeine in the spring water and whole milk I drink, thanks.)
By ds20047

2/22/09 at 7:01 p.m.

Suggest removal

The anti-smokers have gone absolutely bonkers! Have they forgotten that in the 1970's and before that smoking was allowed virtually everywhere?

I don't criticize them for wanting establishments with clean air; that's their right. However it should be the prerogative of the business owner whether he/she wants to allow smoking or not. The anti-smokers can make their desires known to the business owners; and if necessary they can vote with their feet. Nobody is holding a gun to their head and forcing them to either patronize or work in an establishment where smoking is allowed.

Many businesses in the past even took the initiative to install air cleaning machines and have isolated smoking areas to the point where non-smokers could completely avoid, and otherwise not be bothered by people that smoke. But, like the old proverb goes, you give them an inch and they'll take a mile. At every turn, they are screaming: "Not good enough!" as they continue to beat smokers further and further into submission.

I object to government at any level legislating what kind of legal activity is permitted in a private business. Business operators are quite capable of policing their own establishments. If people don't like what's going on in there, they won't come in, and consequently the business won't make any money. That is by far the most effective method of getting something accomplished.

Thankfully we now have a U.S. President that smokes. Maybe he can help put an end to the anti-smoking insanity that has been sweeping the country for the last several decades.

And if the non-smokers are now going to start complaining about the N-Joy cigarette substitute that emits nothing but odorless and harmless water vapor, they have definitely gone way past the limit. If they should begin to complain about the emission of water vapor, they'd better quit taking hot showers, and not walk outside on a foggy morning.
By quitsmoking

8/6/09 at 11:40 a.m.

Suggest removal

All I can say is I got exposed to this e-cigs in Vegas. I've tried to quit smoking more times than I can to count, have tried gums, patches and cold turkey - without success. E-Cigs did the trick. Tobacco free and I feel great. Am I a drug addict? Sure. But this beats the hell out of tobacco use. And consumption is way down. I will be off nicotine eventually. Caffiene? DO I really have to give up my coffee too?

How can anyone oppose this product?

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