A proposal by the World Health Organization to classify electronic cigarettes as a tobacco product is being criticized by some scientists who say the electronic alternative may be less harmful to smokers.
A collection of 53 world scientists urged WHO to refrain from lumping e-cigarettes together with other tobacco products in the same category.
Meanwhile Russia is extending its ban on cigarettes in restaurants and bars.
"Thanks to this law people understand that smoking is bad and that smoking around others is a crime," said Sergei Kalashnikov, head of the Public Health Committee in the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.
The WHO move would put substantial restrictions on the nicotine-delivery devices in many if not most of the world's countries.
E-cigarettes used battery-powered cartridges to create an inhalable vapor that contains nicotine.
The scientists argue electronic cigarettes should be considered "part of the solution" in combating smoking, possible reducing death and disease caused by smoking by offering a less harmful alternative to the use of traditional cigarettes.
"Even though most of us would prefer people to quit smoking and using nicotine altogether, experience suggests that many smokers cannot or choose not to give up nicotine and will continue to smoke if there is no safer alternative available that is acceptable to them," the scientists from North America, Europe, Australia and Asia wrote to WHO Director General Margaret Chan.
The U.N. health organization is reported to consider e-cigarettes a "threat" and to be mulling classifying them as tobacco products as defined under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Around the world 178 countries have said they would implement measures taken under the convention, although the United States has not signed it.
That does not mean e-cigarettes don't face barriers in the U.S., and the Food and Drug Administration has taken some actions to regulate them.
If the WHO goes ahead with the proposal, e-cigarettes could face the same restrictions as tobacco products including advertising bans, taxes, mandatory health warnings or possible bans on their use in public spaces.
The use of the devices has exploded over the last couple of years, with sales in 2013 estimated to have been around $3 billion.
All of the major tobacco companies have reacted to a drop in traditional tobacco use by investing heavily in the technology, and have sided with the scientists in the face of the WHO proposal, which they say goes beyond already harsh regulation in the United States and Europe.
The scientists in their letter urged the WHO to reconsider their proposed actions on e-cigarettes.
"These products could be among the most significant health innovations of the 21st century -- perhaps saving hundreds of millions of lives," they wrote. "The urge to control and suppress them as tobacco products should be resisted."
