<p>THE vapoteurs who gathered on a windy island in the Seine on September 19th brandished e-cigarettes in one hand and flyers inciting the populace to defend them in the other. On October 8th the European Parliament is to vote on a proposal to regulate the devices as if they were medical products. Brice Lepoutre, president of the Independent Association of Electronic-Cigarette Users, is outraged. "We are at the dawn of a revolution in the fight against tobacco," he says. He will join like-minded Europeans in Strasbourg at a demonstration against the proposal before the vote.</p><p>Smoking is falling in most rich countries, but "vaping" is rising. In Europe 7m people are thought to be using e-cigarettes, which vaporise a solution containing nicotine without the toxins from burning tobacco. Sales of e-cigs in America may treble this year, according to figures from Bonnie Herzog of Wells Fargo, a bank. She thinks their consumption could overtake that of ordinary cigarettes in a decade. If regulators let them.</p><p>Health authorities worldwide are struggling to deal with this new way of getting a nicotine kick. E-cigarettes are sold as leisure products and as such are covered by safety and quality standards wherever these exist and are implemented. But leaving them, like shoes or beds, to such catch-all rules makes some regulators uneasy.</p><p>A growing pile of studies say they are far safer than normal cigarettes and at least as good at getting people to quit smoking as nicotine patches and gum. But they too are based on that addictive substance. Churned out by hundreds of suppliers using materials from China and elsewhere, the quality and labelling of e-cigarettes on sale are uneven.</p><p><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/business/21586867-regulators-wrestle-e-smokes-tobacco-industry-changing-fast-kodak-moment">Keep reading...</a></p>