inLife LLC, the Californian based Network marketing company whose range of electronic cigarette have been extremely popular in both the US and Canada and since January in the UK, has announced that it will now also offer the Prestige electronic cigarette to its UK distributors.

The Prestige is an all black device with blue LED display light at the end. inLife recently modified the Prestige so that it was possible to use its new combination cartridge/atomizer  known as the Regal2 cartridge with the Prestige.

The Prestige means that inLife now has a product that competes directly with its main competition in the UK (Gamucci, VIP, etc)

With a retail price of 49.95, it means UK individuals can get involved in the e-cig business for as little as 150.00 pounds.

Interested parties should go to main site for further details

Following a meeting in the UK on Friday of the MHRA it seems that further consultation will be taken before any action or decision is announced. It seems from reports that the members of the MHRA were badly informed about the industry and that thanks to a good representation by vendors of major e-cig suppliers that much was bought to their attention that had not been considered before.

inLife are still the only company that manufactures their e-cig refills in an FDA registered lab (to our knowledge) and is at the forefront of ensuring the safety of the product supplied to its customers.

Report of MHRA Meeting ( taken from ecigarettedirect.co.uk)

MHRA Meeting

At 2.20 the MHRA meeting took place. According to Jean, the MHRA were very uninformed about the product (admitting this themselves). The MHRA showed images of numerous other smoking alternatives, and were taken aback to find that not one of the the 35 retailers supplied them. They were also surprised that not one of us claimed the e-cigarette was a smoking cessation aid.

The Vendors emphasised that the electronic cigarette was not a smoking cessation aid, and that it should be regulated by Trading Standards,  and not by the MHRA, as it is at present designated as a General Sales Product by HMRC.   Katherine Devlin explained that she had prepared an alternative regulatory framework, in consultation with various leading companies.  She proposed that the industry should be voluntary regulated, with a  Code of Practice to be agreed with Trading Standards and their governing body,   Failure to comply would be alerted to  trading standards as required by the industry as well as by TS normal checks.

We emphasised that the device is already regulated, by Trading Standards officers,  and that calling it “unregulated” – as the MHRA has being doing – is simply not true.

Licensing

Metabolism

The physician present confirmed that blood absorption levels would have to be tested. There is a level above which nicotine affects a person’s metabolism. When it is above this level, it needs to need to be regulated in the UK. Our products may well be below this level, but unfortunately the attending physician did not know what level this is. It was suggested by those attending  that we might have to increases  the level of delivered nicotine to become legally described as  a harm reduction aid.

Licensing fees

Concern was expressed over the level of funding vendors would have to pay for licensing, which is estimated to be hundreds of thousands of pounds per electronic cigarette. It was recognised that this is totally unfeasible for a young entrepreneurial industry with a new and innovative device attractive to existing smokers.

In response to questions about time scale, it appears the e-cigarette industry has at the very least until September. All three options remain in place, including stopping sale of the e-cigarettes within 21 days of a decision being taken.

MHRA Responses

The MHRA has had over 1000 responses. Further responses are being accepted by the MHRA until June 9th.

When researching the production and manufacture of electronic cigarettes and their refills the most important factor to consider is the reliability of the manufacture and verification of the refill ingredients. The reason that this is so important lies in the fact that the materials used in the refills bring with them a whole new set of issues as deadly as the tobacco that we as smokers are trying to avoid.

It is hardly worth getting yourself off of tobacco if you are going to jump out of the frying pan into the fire!

The main ingredients in an electronic cigarette refill are propylene glycol, glycerol, nicotine, water and a flavoring.

I am sure most readers will jump at the nicotine as being the potential toxin in this list, but in fact the reasons behind the need for safety is the propylene glycol.

There are two reasons why propylene glycol can become an issue.

1. The first is that there are two types of propylene glycol, industrial grade and pharmaceutical grade. Industrial grade is more concentrated and is a deadly toxin and not fit for consumption. Pharmaceutical grade propylene glycol is a much more diluted form and is used in many foods. As you would expect, pharmaceutical grade is a more expensive chemical process.

2. The second reason for the need for care is a close neighbor to propylene glycol, Diethylene glycol or DEG. DEG is found in antifreeze and is so close to acting in the same manner as propylene glycol that some anti-freezes have substituted industrial grade PG for DEG because whilst still toxic, industrial grade PG is less toxic than DEG.

Now I can hear you say….they wouldnt use the toxic stuff in a consumable product….

Well, when costs are involved in a highly competitive market that has no regulation..who knows. DEG caused 80+ deaths in Nigeria in 2006 when it was substituted for PG in a tooth product and a Chinese hospital was sued for using DEG. The FDA also found DEG in a sample of electronic cigarette refills from a US supplier import batch.

With Chinas track record in cost cutting and poor regulation….we all remember the lead in the paint and plastic in the milk!, then knowing that your refills contain what they are supposed to is an important issue most people have overlooked in this new industry.

To avoid confusion…inLife is the only company that provides electronic cigarettes manufactured in an FDA registered laboratory. This means that the ingredients are independently verified and are what the label says they are.

Electronic cigarettes are the single greatest new technology to affect public health since inoculation. Lets not spoil the party for a ‘hapeth of tart’

Electronic cigarettes are a new technology and are evolving very rapidly. it was only a year or two ago that manual switches meant that the slightest knock to the battery unit would cause the unit to malfunction. Today there are still a lot of suppliers using batteries with manual switches.

One of the most important issues to consider when buying an e-cig is to know you have a customer service department you can rely on. Most of the electric cigarette suppliers you will find online are nameless and faceless and offer no security to you the customer that should you have a question or need help with ordering or if there should be a problem with your electronic cigarette once you have purchased it, that you have an easy procedure to follow to get the help you need.

As an independent distributor for inLife I know how important customer service is. One of the reasons I chose to become a distributor for inLife was because I knew that the company shared my belief that the customer service was second only to the quality of the product we offer.

We have a failsafe, double pronged service so that whatever your problem we are on hand to help.

If you need help and advice with ordering you can call me, Neil, on 843 901 9127 (US) or e-mail neil@myinlife.co.uk

(i do travel so e-mail is best at first. I pick these up hourly and can usually sort your query quickly)

If you have a problem after ordering then you can still use my contacts if you have a question or query.

If you have a problem with your product, we also have customer service department you can contact from either the front of the website or once you have logged into your account. Just choose the category of your question or query and fill out the details and someone will phone you from our customer services department ( thats right…I said phone…)

As a fail safe, if you do not hear from someone in 48 hours….you contact me…….and I will find out why.

Thats the sort of customer service you can depend on….and what makes us the leading supplier of electronic cigarettes.( Well we do have the best product and are the only company that manufactures its refill cartridges in an FDA registered lab…so that helps too!)

If you have any questions regarding our CS please drop me a line:

cforms contact form by delicious:days

Your first instinct when considering buying an electronic cigarette is probably to go for the cheapest you can find online. If so, then you may get some benefit from this article as trying to choose between the offers and prices online can be a confusing dilema . Here is a quick checklist you might want to consider

1. Safety

Considering you will be inhaling the ingredients, it pays to know what you are ingesting. Be advised that nearly all electronic cigarettes are manufactured in China, home of the childrens toys and milk fiasco. There are literally hundreds of manufacturers vying to supply the market, each one trying to undercut costs and compete. With no regulation of the product and the nature of the materials used (both nicotine and propylene glycol can be dangerous in high concentration and only pharmaceutical grade is safe) then independently verifiable ingredients are recommended.Only one company provides refill cartridges manufactured in an FDA registered lab. The cartridges are more expensive but still a fraction of tobacco cigarettes. – Recommended purchase at inLife LLC

2. Reliability

The other major consideration are the reliability of the rechargeable battery unit and the atomizers. E-cigs usually comprise 3 parts to the device. The Battery, the Atomizer and the cartridge containing nicotine.

Many cheap chinese cigarettes still use a manual switch mechanism which will break if you drop the device or knock it. more reliable are solid state batteries and switch mechanisms. better still use a website where you have an address and telephone number you can use for customer service. Otherwise you may end up buying up to a dozen batteries a year…which all adds up to make the cheap electronic cigarette not so cheap any more!

3. Accountability

As mentioned above, use a company where you can contact customer services locally that has accountability and where if something goes wrong with your e-cig you get an automatic replacement, no questions asked. This is new technology and sometimes it fails but this should be at the suppliers cost and not yours.

4. Recommendation

My personal recommendation is inLife. If not for the fact that they are the only company responsible enough to take steps to have their refill cartridges independently verified and manufactured in an FDA registered laboratory, they also have a great customer service department, local distributors and a ‘no questions asked’ replacement policy on the product with an extended 6 months warranty.

At $130 for a starter kit the Regal is not only state of the art in technology terms as far as e-cigs go but add to this the refill safety and you pay a little more to get get a whole lot more in terms of product satisfaction.

Editorial Note:

As a 50 a day tobacco smoker I would give personal testimony that the Regal electronic cigarette transitioned me from smoking tobacco to what I now consider a much more pleasurable smoking experience. I had never wanted to quit and haven’t…I just quit tobacco for smoking something that isn’t going to kill me. I recommend it to all my fellow smokers as a way to regain your rights to smoke where you want, without harming others ans save money to boot….

Original article posted by AMLA The Spanish Property MLS News Blog