The latest news blog, The Economist.

[vereybowring]

Hard to tell with this one. Covers the issues but a little light on detail as usual.

www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/06/economist-explains-11

[Jen]

Hurrah for the first article I've seen not portraying a cigalike! For a short piece, it's quite fair I think.

[Deleted]

That's quite a good article. Promoting both sides of the argument

[kailey]

Seems to be fairly balanced to me. The green ecig in the photo is excellent! Wonderful choice of colour too!

[digicig]

Nice fine Verey

Balanced - or non-committal tho?

BTW loved the cheeky spammer promoting Cigs4girls LoL

[neptune]

Has anyone else noticed the use of the phrase "nicotine laced liquid" in so many of these articles? I have looked up "laced" used in this context in the dictionary. Journalists think they know what it means, but they obviously do not. Suppose you bought a drug on the street in the form of a white powder, that I will not name. To increase his profit, the dealer has added a percentage of talcum powder. So the drug can be said to be "laced" with talcum powder.

Another example would be adding a "date rape" drug to an alcoholic drink, so one could say, "her wine was laced with rhohypnol". So why would anyone "lace" an e liquid with nicotine? Not to cut costs, because nicotine is the most expensive ingredient of an e liquid. Not to cause unexpected intoxication, because the user expects, and pays for, the nicotine, which in any case is singularly ineffective as a date rape drug. Journalists should restrict themselves to talking about lacing as something they do to their shoes, if indeed they are capable of that.