First smokeless cigarette!!!

Picked up from here.

Zurich - The world's first smokeless and tobacco-free cigarette is about to go on sale after being cleared for commercial release.

Swissmedic, the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products, has decided the NicStic is not a medicinal product and has cleared the path for its commercial production. The cigarette should go on sale early in 2006.

NicStic uses a rechargeable heating coil in a plastic cigarette-sized stick to dispense nicotine without smoke.

Its inventors say that their invention will allow smokers to "light up" without annoying others with passive smoke and therefore avoid the increasing smoking bans in public places.

Monique Helfer of Swissmedic said: "If we had classified the NicStic as medication, the manufacturer would have had to apply to have it covered by health insurance and therefore it would have required the approval of the Federal Health Office and taken a lot longer to get to the public."

The company promises that the NicStic releases "a similar taste" to cigarettes without the health issues from tar, arsenic, cadmium and formaldehyde that a normal cigarette contains.

But Janine Messerli from the Swiss Institute for Alcohol and Drug Prevention is critical of NicStic and the Swissmedic decision: "Nicotine is what makes smoking addictive, and so this product changes nothing." - Ananova.com