body, and they are not an fda approved method to quit smoking. critics point out they can keep users hooked on nicotine. so what does the american cancer society think? cautious optimism with a number of caveats. what we don t want to do is to take something out of the hands of people which could, in fact, help people stop using the traditional burn cigarette which is the enemy. reporter: you get angry when people try to fight this. because it worked for us. we saved our lives with this product. i wouldn t be so angry if people took the time, our elected officials took the time to get educated. they re not. reporter: but as cities and states decide how to handle e-cigarettes, the industry continues to boom. time we take our freedom back. poppy, i m laughing at stephen dorf in that ad. how big of an industry is this right now?
the law making it legal for people over 21 to buy small amounts of pot takes effect on january 1st. it will make colorado the first state in the country to offer recreational marijuana stores. many of the store owners say they are expecting huge crowds when they open for business at 8:00 a.m. wednesday morning. cnn s casey wian joins us live now from denver. what s the state been doing to get ready for this? reporter: well, the state s been scrambling, jake, to put together a new series of regulations to govern this industry that has never been tried before in the united states. the state regulations are pretty much in place. there have been hundreds of businesses that have been approved by the state to operate these recreational marijuana retail operations, but there s a whole other level that these businesses need to go through and that s city regulations. some cities are not approving recreational marijuana sales. for those that are, there are very stringent requirements that thes
reporter: it is massive. a wells fargo tobacco industry analyst just came out and said that they are estimating that the market this year alone in the united states for e-cigarettes, $1.8 billion. even more surprising is their expectation that this market for electronic cigarettes is going to surpass the market for traditional smoke cigarettes in the next decade. if that happens, i think that will be astounding. what we don t know yet is what the fda is going to do. they have said that they could come out as early as this month, so that would mean in the next two days, with a proposed rule to regulate e-cigarettes. that could change the entire game and on top of that, there is still this big hanging question, is nicotine alone really safe to inhale. some studies say yes but more recent studies like one out of brown last week says not so fast. there are a lot of questions here and mayor bloomberg and new york city getting out in front
health need. this is one of the most important public health problems we face. reporter: she argues they must be federally regulated and not marketed to kids. i wish you could smell it in here. of course, it doesn t smell like smoke. it smells a lot like candy. no surprise, given all the flavors that they sell. critics argue when you sell flavors like cotton candy or like gummy bear, that can attract children. some states have age requirements on sales but not all. cdc data show nearly two million middle and high school students tried these cigarettes last year, more than double the number in 2011. e-cigarettes can potentially help some people but they ve got serious potential harms that we know about. if they get kids to start smoking, that s really bad. if they get smokers who would have quit to keep smoking, that s really bad. if they get former smokers to go back to smoking, that s really bad. and if they reglamorize the act of smoking, that s bad as well. reporter: e-cigaret
packaging requirements, there are different potencies that are allowed to be sold for recreational use versus medical use. there are labeling requirements. there are inventory controls, point of sale systems, different tax regimes. it s a very, very complicated process. so complicated that here in the city of denver, there s about 250 medical marijuana businesses. only 14 of them will be ready for recreational sales on wednesday morning, new year s day. beyond a surge in late night taco bell runs, what should we expect once these stores open? reporter: well, everyone here from the police to the business owners say they do not expect sort of a marijuana mardi gras type atmosphere because it s still illegal to smoke marijuana in public. they do expect, though, that there are going to be lines of people outside of these stores at 8:00 on wednesday morning, because there are predictions of