Ronald Reagan once said “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” Democrats aren’t even waiting to see if e-cigs keep moving before they run straight to regulation
(National Review) There are a lot of rumors out there about e-cigarettes. They are white sticks, they emit what looks like smoke, and people hold them like their papery peers. Faced with these visible similarities, many lawmakers are out to shun e-cigarettes from polite society, much as traditional cigarettes have been banned from parks, restaurants, public spaces, and sometimes even peoples’ homes.
In the process, government health nannies are accomplishing the perverse goal of squashing what may be the most successful smoking-reduction product of the last 15 years.
The regulatory push, predominantly led by those who claim to base their political views on science, has little science to support it. More importantly, many studies show that e-cigarettes help smokers quit, while the water vapor they exhale has been shown, at least in one study, to contain ten times less nicotine that tobacco smoke.
Are e-cigs better for you than tobacco? At this time, we would have to say yes. It’s simply water vapor with flavor and some nicotine. Obviously, nicotine is not that good for you. And there’s always a chance that a long term study will find that they are very bad for you. Yet, as of today, they seem to be much better, and people find that quitting cigarettes is much easier than with patches and gum. Personally, I am down to 5-8 a day, when I was a pack to pack and a half a day smoker. I was the first one at work to give them a whirl (workplace went tobacco free February 2013). Many have follow along. One is down to 2-4 a day. Another is down from 2 packs a day to limiting himself to no more than 10. A few have quit altogether.
Of course, since e-cig use has taken off and become what seems to be a success during this terrible Obamaeconomy, liberal busy-body nanny-staters have to jump in
Yet Minnesota state representative Phyllis Kahn of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party has proposed a law that would restrict the usage of e-cigarettes throughout the state in the same way that cigarettes are restricted. Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill also want to treat e-cigarettes the same was as cigarettes by banning e-cigarettes in the Capitol, legislative office buildings, and within 25 feet of the entrances of any of those buildings. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville recently banned e-cigarettes from all campus buildings. The list goes on and on.
The FDA has been threatening to get involved, even though there are no real studies. Craig Weiss, CEO of the e-cigarette company NJOY, notes
“Our view is that we support reasonable, balanced regulation,†Weiss says. “I support ingredient disclosure, good manufacturing practices, age restrictions, and what I would call ‘reasonable regulation on advertising,’ meaning, for example, no using cartoon characters or advertising on Cartoon Network on Saturday mornings.â€
I think we can all agree on that. Right now much of what is going on is self-regulation. The place I get my vapor liquid from refuses to sell to minors. When I was there the other day the owner told some kids who walked in to walk right out.
So far, studies have found that electronic cigarettes can actually help smokers quit or reduce the amount they smoke. One study published in the American Journal of Health and Behavior looked only at smokers aged 18 to 65 who were not interested in quitting smoking. By using e-cigarettes, 89 percent of the participants reduced the number of cigarettes they smoked a day by an average of 39 percent. Sixteen percent of subject reduced their cigarette consumption to zero by the end of the study.
And in comes Government to mess things up with lots and lots of restrictions.
“Here you have an incredible situation where private enterprise took on something that seemed like an intractable problem and developed a product with enormous potential,†Weiss says. “But if you make it just as inconvenient for smokers to use an alternative to their cigarette as it is to use their cigarette, they are just going to keep smoking their cigarettes, and that is not in the best interest of public health.â€
Instead of making things more difficult, Government should get out of the way.
Left unsaid in the article is that when Government starts regulating, they can also cause the price to rise artificially.
Cigarette smoking is the most dangerous and expensive addictive behavior we have. Over 5% of Americans suffer from a smoking-related disease – cancer, heart disease, COPD. On average, smokers live 10 fewer years than non-smokers. Cigarette smoking causes nearly 500,000 premature deaths a year in the US alone. If you’ve ever watched a loved one die decades too soon from emphysema or lung cancer you know how horrible this blight is.
The far-right firestorm is over whether e-cigarettes should be regulated like tobacco.
I understand that addicts want to be able to satisfy their addiction in public – at Chuck E. Cheese, little-league games, dance recitals, middle school graduations – but is it asking too much to suggest addicts hide their addictive behavior from children? The shaming and “denormalization” of cigarette smoking has been an effective strategy in reducing smoking.
And it’s not just liberals and Democrats who are concerned.
“In September 2013, 40 U.S. attorneys general called on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to act swiftly to regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products. Dr. Howard Koh, assistant secretary for health, has urged leaders of U.S. schools of public health to join an effort to make U.S. colleges and universities smoke-free, which would include banning e-cigarettes.”
on the other hand, from the same article, the authors raise an excellent point:
“The most vocal supporters of e-cigarettes, other than those with commercial interests in them, have been public health professionals who’ve embraced the strategy of harm reduction — an approach to risky behavior that prioritizes minimizing damage rather than eliminating the behavior. Harm reduction was the guiding principle behind needle exchange, the provision of sterile syringes to injection-drug users to reduce bloodborne transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis, and other illnesses.”
So it seems the important question is whether or not e-cigarettes reduce tobacco use – do they work as a cessation device.
What’s the harm in limiting the public display and advertising of e-cigarettes until we know that?
I highly recommend you read the article from the NEJM:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1313940
Yes I think they should be treated just like their foul tobacco cousins. They should not be used inside public spaces
A very predictable response to a new technology, don’t investigate the already know facts and numerous studies, but ban it because we don’t like what it LOOKS like.
Te political reaction to personal vaporizers (they are not cigarettes, electronic or otherwise) is to how much tax money are we losing if people use them and stop paying cigarette taxes. They are addicted to the cigarette tax money and simply want to replace it.
They are not tobacco products, they do not burn tobacco, they do not contain tobacco.
Guess you avoid the water vapor in your shower also, it’s as dangerous.
“It’s simply water vapor with flavor and some nicotine.”
That’s not accurate. It’s nicotine, flavoring, and (usually) propylene glycol, which is the stuff they use in fog machines. The last study they did on propylene glycol inhalation was in the 1950s and they determined it is not bad to inhale. It’s probably time to do another study before making any move either way on e-cigs.
But there can be no doubt that it’s better for you than inhaling the acidic tars found in tobacco and marijuana. The tar is what trashes your lung cells and gives you cancer, not nicotine.
Inhaling the excessive heat is also a contributor to lung and throat damage. Unfortunately it exists in real and fake smokes. So they’re not perfect. Just a hell of a lot better than smoking leaves.
Stosh,
The “personal vaporizers” are used to deliver an addictive and potentially dangerous drug. Most showers are not used to inhale nicotine.
That said, if the e-cigarettes replace tobacco use that’s a good thing. If they draw more kids into tobacco use, that’s a bad thing.
Although reducing tobacco sales reduces revenue from tobacco taxes, it would save governments money by reducing healthcare outlays. In addition it’s hard to put a price on reducing human suffering by cutting lung cancer incidence by 75%, heart disease by half and emphysema by half.
Related point:
Cigarette smoking has resulted in the premature deaths of at least 10 million Americans, consumed trillions in healthcare costs and caused untold misery. Why do we tolerate that?
I find it amazing that liberals want to control every aspect of our lives. I don’t smoke and never wanted to. All I ask is that smoke is not in my environment. Once you are informed of the risk of an action and you chose to continue with that action, then that is your problem, not mine of the government. This goes for drugs, alcohol and any other behavior. We don’t need government regulation.
One thing I can guarantee is that one day you will get very sick and die. How you go about your life to that point is not my business. I will tell you the best way to remain healthy, but after that it is strictly your business. I might add that all those years that you might gain by healthy activity are added at the end. In other words, you spend longer as an elderly person which is not nice. That is a fact.
I actually agree with you to a point. Personal responsibility should mostly be at play. I do not use w cigs in restaurants, at the movies, stores (except perhaps in bathrooms). I don’t blow it in peoples faces. Having all sorts of Government restrictions is wrong.
That said (and I’m not starting a fight), what about people drinking in front of kids? Or smoking pot?
Nicotine has been studied and found to be as addictive and dangerous as caffeine. But science doesn’t matter to the “nanny staters” if they don’t like your behavior it is only right and proper for them to control you.
Also propylene glycol, which is used in fog machines has also been used in hospital air circulation for it’s benefits. It’s been studied and used for 50 years but “we don’t know, so we must ban or tax it into submission”. Exactly how many years must a substance be studied to be considered long term safe.
There has been real, scientific research done, (not global warming type science), read about it…http://www.casaa.org/Clinical_Research.html
“what about people drinking in front of kids? Or smoking pot?”
So long as the tax man gets their cut, the idiot politicians are fine with it…
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Actually, that isn’t obvious at all. It’s the tar and other crap in the smoke that is so destructive, modern studies have shown that pure nicotine is relatively harmless.
There are two batteries included in most electronic cigarette starter kits.
E-cigarettes can very well be absolutely nicotine free.
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