Also, if e-cigs turn out to be safe, or can be made safe, what is the problem? Just a bunch of puritan's with their underwear in a knot.
This is weasle-wording.
"Just a bunch of puritan's with their underwear in a knot."
Reframing the debate in moralistic terms is not useful here. It's a public health issue, plain and simple. If there is research that you are privy to that shows nicotine to be harmless, please share it with us; don't keep it to yourself.
Now, there is a public health discussion to be had about e-cigarettes, however they have inherited much of the moral baggage that we attached to traditional cigarettes (as well as much of the public perception of safety we have attached to traditional cigarettes).
If you are reading something in the opinion section of a general purpose news paper, odds are you are reading a moralistic piece. That is not the place where technical discussions of public policy occur.
[0] This is not to say the motivations of those conducting it were moralistic, but many of the compagns themselves were, and cigarettes are now widely viewed as a moral failing.
I have the feeling that with vaping there's a "safe until proven unsafe" factor... The fact that it is used as a way to get people away from cigarettes tends to make think that it can just be better, which might be true, but at the same time there's absolutly no knowledge about long term effects.
Personally I think it would make sense to apply tobacco regulations to vaping. For safety purpose as well as respect for non smoker/vapers.
I know for a fact from people who worked for BAT that it is now a big part of their strategy.
When I see news like this, i can't help but make a parallel with tobacco lobbying: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45212444
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Contraindications
"The accepted medical position in 2007 was that nicotine itself poses few health risks, except among certain vulnerable groups"
Of course it is a moral debate. Sure its not healthy, but shouldnt people be allowed to use it regardless if they decide to do so? It only becomes a public health issue once people who dont smoke are effected, which is why we got bans to smoke in certain places and not a ban on smoking in general.
2) Smoking impacts on individual productivity which directly impacts on economy:
> Current smokers missed more days of work and experienced more unproductive time at work compared with former smokers and nonsmokers. The average annual cost for lost productivity for nonsmokers was 2623 dollars/year compared with 3246 dollars/year for former smokers and 4430 dollars/year for current smokers. More than half the costs were due to unproductive time at work. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17033509
3) Tobacco smoking is the cause of many preventable diseases and premature deaths in the UK and around the world. It poses enormous health- and non-health-related costs to the affected individuals, employers, and the society at large. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that, globally, smoking causes over US$500 billion in economic damage each year: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4502793/
Dismissing discussions about impacts of smoking as moralistic is borderline disingenuous in face of the numerous studies freely available on the internet.
Are you sure you don't see any methodological issues with this study & those claims? Cuz I see a lot.
>Dismissing discussions about impacts of smoking as moralistic is borderline disingenuous
Please consider avoiding backhandedly calling people liars.
Meanwhile your comment also adds nothing to the debate by going straight to personal attacks and a vague dismissal of one of the linked studies.
To stay on topic:
Could you provide a study that disproves collateral damages, be it with to health or simply economic, to non-smokers?
I'm all for freedom of choice as long as it doesn't impact the collective. And To add to your point, imagine if sugar-rich and fast-food packagings were photos of sickly-looking obese people and insulin injections. Also imagine if fast-food was prohibited from being advertised. That's what some govs do with tobacco. As you said, allowing one but no the other is indeed a moral debate.
Only if you can point out what the weasel word is.
Asking what's the problem if they're/can be made safe is not a weasel phrasing.
Is a totally legitimate question.
It would be a weasel phrase if the healthiness was assumed somehow.
We don't know if they're actually safe, and we don't know how addictive they are, and so the precautionary principle tells us not to recommend vaping to people who are not already smokers. Small amounts of harm across an entire population adds up.
We have very good reason to be wary of any action taken by tobacco companies because of their many years of abusive practices. An abundance of caution around tobacco companies isn't a bad thing.
The primary issue is that Big Tobacco is marketing to children, again, with the goal to get children who currently wouldn't use cigarettes. That needs to get stomped on.
Do you mind providing a source for this claim? :)
paragraphs 12 onward
Otherwise the section referenced said nicotine does not seem to be a carcinogen but some people suspect it may be a tumor promoter. If we're drawing the line at "suspected to be involved in cancer somehow but doesn't cause it" then we're going to have to rework most of society and then some.
The only other thing that stood out was the particulates issue, though they didn't mention any health effects of being exposed to the particulates and I don't have that knowledge off-hand.