In defiance of a virtual ban by the medicines control agency, an electronic cigarette company has started selling an alternative nicotine hit, the price of smoking rises again from tomorrow.

From around $14.60 for a packet of 25 to more than $16, the price of cheaper cigarette brands is expected to rise.

Smokers are being hit by the second of three excise tax rises of 10 per cent; this is because on top of the annual, inflation-based tax rise. To a one-off tax increase of 14 per cent on loose tobacco, the first of these, in May, was in addition.

By hitting smokers in the wallet, the tax increases are intended to reduce smoking. The most effective way of cutting tobacco consumption and the smoking rate are price increases. It is reported that around one in five adults smoke.

Access to safer forms of nicotine than smoking, which deliver the addictive drug in a vapor, without the harmful components of tobacco smoke, such as rechargeable battery-powered e-cigarettes, should be given to smokers, according to some public health researchers.

Flavored, non-nicotine cartridges can also operate E-cigarettes.

Medsafe issued a warning to the Dunedin outlet because it had made a therapeutic claim, promoting them as a quit-smoking aid, nicotine cartridges were sold in New Zealand until April.

Group manager Dr Stewart Jessamine said, "Nicotine is a deadly poison and when intended for administration to humans it is a scheduled medicine."