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Comment by chime | Hacker News Reader

I was at a theme park last month with my toddler, sitting on a bench in no-smoking area and this lady came over and started smoking an e-cig right next to us. When I pointed out to her the smoking area about 200 feet away from us, she said "Oh don't worry. These are totally safe for the little one!" I smiled politely, said "Have a good day" and walked away without making a fuss.

As to your point, they may be safer than regular cigarettes but what's even safer is not smoking anything around me or my family. I don't how safe they are because there are no regulations [1]. If the vapers think they are safe enough to be used in close proximity to toddlers, then the e-cig companies have done a fantastic job of marketing. I'm totally ok with FDA regulating them.

1. http://www.babycentre.co.uk/x25008143/is-it-safe-to-use-e-ci...

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> If the vapers think they are safe enough to be used in close proximity to toddlers, then the e-cig companies have done a fantastic job of marketing.

Or you just happened to run into an uneducated/unintillegent/dishonest person smoking an e-cig.

Worrying about e-cigarettes outdoors seems like an overreaction, compared to thousands of other more serious environmental toxins we all face every day. (Frankly worrying about regular cigarettes outdoors also is an overreaction, but smokers have been very effectively demonized in our culture.) I guess turning the issue into a black-and-white binary is easier than reasoning about dosage.

I feel like the concern there would directly be secondhand nicotine in the vapor, which is particularly neurotoxic to developing brains [1]. Feels like a pretty reasonable concern to me, with a child around?

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2746456/

Except the amount of nicotine indoors is far less than cigarettes. I'd imagine outside is almost nil.

> The emissions discharge water, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nicotine into indoor air at levels far lower than found with tobacco cigarettes (Schripp et al., 2013).

http://www.treatobacco.net/en/page_528.php

In addition, e-cigarettes dont always have nicotine and often have lower amounts than cigarettes. Further making the fear of momentarily sitting near someone smoking an e-cigarette outside almost irrational in terms of health risks.

In terms of not wanting vapor being blown in your face, then I agree there is a social etiquette that should be respected.

The very fact that there are flavoured vapors that smell up an entire room with their disgustingly sweet scents is enough to ban them indoors. I don't want your strawberry cloud in my face. Imagine 20+ people in a closed space all dispersing their various scented vapors. No thanks. It would not be considered acceptable for someone to burn incense in most indoors locations; this is no different in that regard, and may be worse.

Should we ban spray on deodorant and perfume too? I find axe particularly offensive and a few perfumes too.

People that overuse deserve to be talked to and asked to tone it down. I've seen a couple of instances of this in my time and it works, as most people are a little embarrassed to learn that their perfume/cologne/body spray is that pungent. Fair enough, considering that once you've used the same scent for months on end, you barely smell it on yourself anymore. Sometimes it takes a gentle nudge to inform.

And yes, if once talked to, someone continues to bathe themselves in scents that gag other people, they need to be let go. The flagrant disrespect for people who have to be around you for 8 hours a day is too much.

Indeed, and I think the same is true of vaping. If you're blowing obnoxious clouds indoors, sure, you should be asked to stop and, on refusing, ejected. This, as with the fragrance example, does not require regulation.

More than not wanting the vapor, it's respecting that others may have that concern in a public space, as irrational as it may seem to you. I think common sense would extend e-cigs to a "no smoking" area.

Dosage of what? The contents of e-cigs has been unregulated until now.

And what if the device isn't safe in some way? What if it's likely to explode? Or the way it vaporizes things can tend to produce some sort of unexpectedly toxic chemical, perhaps only with certain vaping fluid?

These kind of concerns are why people want them regulated.

There is not even any theoretical reason to think any of this.

> And what if the device isn't safe in some way? What if it's likely to explode?

"What's Causing Some E-Cigarette Batteries to Explode?", NBC News, 2 months ago

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/what-s-causing-some...

> Or the way it vaporizes things can tend to produce some sort of unexpectedly toxic chemical perhaps only with certain vaping fluid?

The contents of the fluid was unregulated, so how can you say that's not even a theoretical concern? A quick Google search shows a TON of recipes which could easily cause problems. How can you be sure that some fluid works fine with most e-cigs but when used by one that runs a bit hotter it doesn't cause a fire or have some chemical reaction between components that generates some dangerous gas? What if the fluid somehow reacts with the plastic or metal inside your specific e-cig?

> Dosage of what? The contents of e-cigs has been unregulated until now.

And it's not like anyone has ever seen cases of normally safe products made in an unsafe way put on the market.

http://time.com/107922/china-pet-food-contamination-recall-v...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8944028...

http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/lumber-liquidators-halts-chines...

http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/18/toxic-hair-straighteners-inte...

Likely != some

Of course some batteries explode. Shall we also ban laptops and cell phones?

As for content of the juice, sure there has been a few incidents of chemicals discovered to be potentially unsafe, but that's a far cry from " tend to produce some sort of unexpectedly toxic chemical". (What does that even mean, it sounds like we live in pre-scientific times and the world is a completely mystery to us.)

> How can you be sure that some fluid works fine with most e-cigs but when used by one that runs a bit hotter it doesn't cause a fire or have some chemical reaction between components that generates some dangerous gas?

There is no theoretical basis in chemistry to believe this, and there is extremely widespread usage of ecigs with no incidents.

But sure, anything in the world is possible I suppose considering you cannot prove a negative. I'm going to start wearing safety goggles when using my computer in case the screen explodes, after all, even though there's no theoretical reason to fear this and no incidences of it happening, it could, couldn't it. :)

You are so vociferously defending ecigs, i have to ask, why? They are clearly not good for you, and have been taken up by the market sources that successfully obfuscated the dangers of tobacco for many years. Are you being paid in some way by a pro e-cig group, or do you sell them?

It appears there actually may be a plausible theory:

http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/14771/how-does-...

Common sense is utterly useless against parents.

That article has contains no theory, never mind evidence, that vaping near a baby could be harmful.

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