Jay Jenkins said he hesitated when a buddy suggested they vape CBD.

“It’ll relax you,” the friend assured.

The vapor Jenkins inhaled didn’t relax him. He ended up in a coma.

What he vaped didn’t have any CBD, the popular compound extracted from the cannabis plant that marketers say can treat a range of ailments without getting users high. Instead, the oil was spiked with a powerful street drug.

The use of e-cigarettes continues to dramatically increase, and the debate over their safety and appropriate use has heated up, in parallel. We as pulmonary clinicians are called upon to advise our patients and others about e-cigarettes, which presents challenges given the current limitations of the data upon which our advice should be based. What do we say?

“I used to cough my guts up every morning,” rasped Callum Henderson. The 31-year-old started smoking aged 11 and puffed through two packs of Marlboro Gold a day until he quit five years ago. Henderson began to cut down when a friend in the pub offered him an electronic cigarette. The devices not only helped the former car trader kick the deadly habit — they also gave him an idea for a business.

He and his brother Connor (another ex-smoker) founded Vaporized in 2013 in Edinburgh. Today it is Britain’s largest chain of ecigarette shops, with 96 outlets.

Although vaping has been around since 2004, the real uptick in vapers only happened several years ago, when the industry ironed out the kinks and presented casual users with a wide variety of easy-to-use vaping devices. Since then, the vaping community has been under constant attacks from vaping opponents, most of which are able to secure serious coverage by the mainstream media.

Two brothers in their early twenties have been accused of running what authorities say could be one of the largest operations to manufacture and sell illegal THC-filled vaping cartridges in the US.

Authorities said 20-year-old Tyler Huffhines was the ringleader of a sophisticated vaping “empire” that is now being investigated for links to the recent vaping-related illnesses and deaths across the country.

By JANE E. BRODY

February 23, 2015

A major new study of smoking and death has banged more nails into the coffin of cigarette smoking, though chances are it will do little to persuade any of the 42 million American smokers to quit.

If current smokers have not already responded to the well-established links between smoking and 21 diseases that together cause 480,000 deaths each year, adding another five diseases and 60,000 deaths to this grisly total is unlikely to make a difference — at least not by itself.

Five major electronic cigarette companies in the city have formed a new association to block the government's plan to ban the sale of their products in the city, the Post has learned.

Nav Lalji, one founder of the Asian Vape Association formed last week, said the group contained major players in the e-cigarette industry - including sellers, distributors and manufacturers - who make up about 70 per cent of the local market.

Philip Morris International and Japan Tobacco will launch their new, real tobacco e-smokes, IQOS in Japan that will become the key testing ground for the two companies. After successful tries in Europe and Japan since 2014, the two giants are confident and expect a global expansion soon.

At the time BAT was launching its “hybrid” e-cigarette in Romania, two other giants announce that their smokeless cigarette will be released in Japan.