Which again, might not be so terrible given how little is understood about the drug. It can certainly be life-destroying if you smoke to get it.
Which again, might not be so terrible given how little is understood about the drug. It can certainly be life-destroying if you smoke to get it.
And yet nicotine patches are widely and cheaply available and unstigmatized.
I'd guess that it's more due to the fact that e-cigs look like normal cigarettes.
Vaping is primarily a nuisance to those that (correctly) learned to consider smoke (but also, unfortunately, whatever looks like smoke) as something negative, due to decades of anti-smoking campaigns. It looks like smoke so it's bound to be bad.
Anti-smoking campaigns and legislation exist not because smoking is a nuisance, but because it causes real health issues.
Perfume is not really regulated by legislation in public spaces (unless there is some edge-case that I'm missing), obviously it can be regulated internally, as part of a private work policy for example -the same way that dressing code does. Totally different matter.
Barbeque smoke, like any smoke, is harmful, so I don't think we should compare it either.
If vaping becomes a disturbance to the extent that it needs to be regulated, any regulating should be done completely independently of any superficial similarities to smoking, based solely on facts relevant to the actual disturbance.
The fact that most arguments I see are based on the possibility of unknown health effects -even though there is no evidence for such- and not on the fact that it is otherwise disturbing, to me indicates that it's no more disturbing than dozens of other things that are allowed in public places but nobody dares propose that they should be banned by law.
And many of us who are anti-smoking (and anti-vaping), are also supporters of public transportation and reducing car usage.
We could, of course, assume that there might be ill effects even thogh we can't even imagine what those would be at this point, however we could do that with practically anything, couldn't we?
As a society we've worked hard to ensure you can live your life without inhaling cigarette smoke; I don't see any reason to avoid extending this to e-cigarettes.
Of course, I've also seen clauses forbidding e-cigs inside apartment buildings. That's just an irrational, dick move—they aren't a fire hazard and don't appear to cause property damage like smoke does.
Unfortunately, I can't say I disagree with you. There's an entire culture around "big clouds", which are extremely obnoxious in public.
My intuition is on your side though, I imagine they are far less damaging than normal cigarettes.
Of course they have. There has been solid evidence of the harm of tobacco cigarettes for decades. Smoking bans are well supported by the evidence. Any restrictions on e-cigarettes is not.
In this case, we are erring on the side of caution and banning e-cigs until they are further studied. Learning from our mistakes.
Also, they aren't banned. The FDA just made it so small businesses wouldn't be able to make the ecig products (basically). Big tabacco, however, is able to take the hit. Take it how you will.
Keep in mind this article is about Australia too. We have a much tighter and more strict food and consumables regulatory body which has typically served us well. It wouldn't make sense for us to strongly fight against cigarettes and then just let some new inhaled product on the market without studies showing they're okay.
Another part of the regulation impetus was that they were uncertified electronic devices which no matter the purpose is fairly tightly regulated as well.
It has not been demonstrated they are completely safe either. Some countries take your approach, others a more conservative one.
This holds for any substance in existence. Yes, that's fairly pedantic, but I think it demonstrates the lack of any argument for banning it based on solid health research.
That doesn't mean a more conservative approach shouldn't be taken when new products enter the market for user consumption.
Nicotine itself does have problems. It is, after all, a pesticide.
Assuming that e-cigarettes result in a lowered level of cigarette smoking, banning e-cigarettes sounds a lot like perfect being the enemy of good.