Is the E-Cigarette Bubble About to Burst? However，the vapers are becoming more common

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On a sunny Friday this spring, a thick haze lingered in the lobby of the Hyatt Dulles in Herndon. It was sweet, like apples and chocolate, and was coming from people huddled around tables near an indoor koi pond, sucking on metal contraptions with skinny mouthpieces that made them look like miniature oboes.


More people sat at the bar, challenging one another to see who could blow the biggest clouds. When I asked the bartender how he liked serving this crowd, he shrugged and said it was okay. Not that long ago, he noted, “you could smoke in here—it was horrible.”
The Virginia Indoor Clean Air Act bans smoking in elevators, public schools, polling places, and restaurants. But the law doesn’t extend to electronic cigarettes or personal vaporizers, which is what people at the Hyatt Dulles were puffing. The battery-powered devices work by heating a liquid nicotine solution and turning it into an inhalable mist. (They are, in effect, wee versions of the fog machine Lady Gaga uses to becloud herself onstage.) The vapor the devices emit looks like cigarette smoke, but they’re noncombustible: no tobacco, smoke, or ash. To use such a device is to “vape.” A person who vapes is a vaper.

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About 2,000 vapers were at the Hyatt Dulles for Vapefest, a semiannual gathering for e-cigarette vendors and enthusiasts. First held in 2010, the convention is now billed as the “longest-running vape event in the nation.” It has spawned at least 15 copycats, including VapeBash, Vapestock, Vape-a-Palooza, Vapetoberfest, and, yes, Vapor Gras.
At Vapefest, vapers roamed the Hyatt hallways and rode the elevators dragging on their devices full of flavored e-juice, leaving trails redolent of cinnamon and crème brûlée. Meanwhile, in my room, a placard on the bedspread warned that I’d be hit with a $250 cleaning fee if I stank the place up with cigarettes.

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Throughout Washington and across the country, close encounters with vapers are becoming more common, and it doesn’t take an extreme environment like Vapefest to guarantee a sighting. But you might not know a vaper when you see one. That’s because e-cigs are typically designed to mimic the look of traditional cigarettes—hardcore vapers call them “cig-alikes,” disparagingly—and they glow at the tip when dragged on. Likewise, some personal vaporizers resemble paraphernalia available in a head shop, except they’re sold in vape shops.
Six or seven years ago, there was no such thing as a vape shop. Today there are about 5,000 nationwide, and new stores are opening all the time. The District’s first, called DC Vape Joint, opened in Adams Morgan in March. Many thousands more convenience stores and kiosks, such as those at Union Station and Tysons Corner Center, sell cig-alikes.

There’s also Vape News Magazine, a glossy bimonthly out of St. Louis with 25,000 readers; podcasts (Click, Bang!; The TVA Show); online communities (Vaping Forum, Planet of the Vapes); YouTube channels (Vaped Crusader, Vaping Monkey); and the National Vapers Club, organizer of Vapefest.
For such a young market—e-cigs didn’t appear until around 2006—vaping is already doing big business. Last year, e-cig sales topped $2 billion, according to industry analyst Bonnie Herzog of Wells Fargo Securities. By 2017, Herzog expects sales to surpass $10 billion. At this rate, and barring any red tape that could stifle innovation, she adds, the market could outpace that of traditional cigarettes by 2024—a prospect that hasn’t gone overlooked by Big Tobacco.

The makers of Camels, Marlboros, and Newports have all fired up their own e-cig products. R.J. Reynolds introduced Vuse Digital Vapor Cigarettes in July of last year. Altria has MarkTen, and this past April the company acquired a small e-cig manufacturer called Green Smoke. Blu, the country’s top-selling brand, is made by Lorillard.
The company got free publicity at the Golden Globe Awards this year when Julia Louis-Dreyfus vaped a Blu as a gag. The audience roared as the Veep star, in black cat-eye sunglasses, an updo, and a strappy red evening gown, puffed importantly on the long black wand, its tip lighting up like an electrified topaz gemstone. (Watch the GIF.)

Lorillard has left the official flacking to former Playboy centerfold Jenny McCarthy, now of The View, who has gushed about Blus in ads for the brand. The message: E-cigs won’t yellow your teeth or make your hair smell, and they can be enjoyed anywhere—no one will give you the stink-eye, she says. The tagline: Take Back Your Freedom.

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