Ex-surgeon general joins e-cigarette firm

RICHMOND, Va. - Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona, who highlighted the dangers of secondhand smoke and supported a ban on all tobacco products, is joining the board of directors for NJOY Inc., the nation’s leading electronic cigarette company - a move that could bring increased legitimacy to e-cigarettes as a viable alternative to traditional cigarettes.

The country’s senior public health official under President George W. Bush from 2002-06 will advise the Arizona-based company on public health and regulatory issues. He’ll also spearhead its research of the battery-powered devices that heat a liquid nicotine solution and create vapor that users inhale. The private company’s flagship NJOY KING product is the top-selling e-cigarette.

The 63-year-old Carmona serves as president of the health and wellness nonprofit Canyon Ranch Institute in Tucson and is a public health professor at the University of Arizona.

In 2006, he published a comprehensive report that concluded that breathing any amount of someone else’s tobacco smoke harms nonsmokers and was instrumental in smoking bans around the country. And in testimony to a Congressional committee in 2003, Carmona was critical about the possibility of safer tobacco alternatives to smoking.

“Definitely there’s an argument that can be made for harm reduction, but clearly more research needs to be done,” Carmona said. “I’m probably going to be [the company’s] biggest critic. … I still look at my job as being a doctor of the people, and I’m going to look at the science. … If we can find a viable alternative that gave us harm reduction as people are withdrawing from nicotine, I’m happy to engage in that science and see if we can do that.”

There are two approaches to regulating tobacco use: one that says there’s no safe way to use tobacco and pushes for people to quit above all else.The other supports lower-risk alternatives like smokeless tobacco and other nicotine delivery systems like gum or even electronic cigarettes as methods to improve overall health.

Devotees insist e-cigarettes address both the addictive and behavioral aspects of smoking. Smokers get their nicotine without the more than 4,000 chemicals found in regular cigarettes. And they get to hold a cigarette, while puffing and exhaling something that looks like smoke. More than 45 million Americans smoke cigarettes, and about half of smokers try to quit each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

NJOY’s CEO Craig Weiss said the addition of Carmona to its board is a “very powerful step forward” in its mission to “obsolete cigarettes.”

The company did not disclose how much Carmona was being compensated for his new role.

The market for e-cigarettes has grown from the thousands of users in 2006 to several million worldwide. Analysts estimate sales could double this year to $1 billion, and consumption of e-cigs, as they are commonly called, could surpass consumption of traditional cigarettes in the next decade. Some companies, including NJOY, have even started running TV commercials.