e-cigarettes: back to the future

Life, always a few miles per hour below the speed of parody:

Last summer, a Florida company began aggressively marketing e-cigarettes - which emit a nicotine vapor with the help of a computer chip - but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration now seems poised to pull e-cigs from the market because the agency considers them "new drugs." That means they need approval from the FDA, which requires companies to back up their claims with scientific data....

Invented in China several years ago, the e-cig not only "smokes" like a cigarette, it also looks like a cigarette, feels like a cigarette, glows like a cigarette and contains nicotine like a cigarette.

But it's not a cigarette. It's a slender stainless-steel tube.

Wonder if they drew their inspiration from the source of all foolishly great ideas: The Onion.