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Comment by mattoxic | Hacker News Reader

I hate cigarettes, I hate the litter, the smell, and the smokers' belief that they have the divine right to pollute my airspace. I also hate the taxes I spend on keeping them in hospital - but. E cigarettes don't cause litter, the smoke is far less offensive. If people are going to smoke they will smoke. SF would be far better off banning actual cigarettes.

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Btw, it’s counterintuitive and morbid to think about, but the healthcare and other public spending is actually less for smokers than nonsmokers on average: they tend to die right around retirement age before social security and expensive healthcare is needed. See e.g. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1210319

Hah! This is a fantastic argument I hadn't heard before.

There's a classic (and very funny) scene in Yes Prime Minister with this exact argument:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB-WCX6ndow&feature=youtu.be...

> the smoke is far less offensive

Because of this belief by vapers, in my experience they tend to be more indiscriminate about where they puff and exhale...the end result is far more exposure to second-hand vape than second hand cigarette smoke.

Living in New York, I see littered Juul cartridges constantly- on the sidewalks, in windowsills, crushed in the street- and I get sprayed with other people's second-hand vaping while walking to work at least as often as with cigarette smoke. As a bystander, I'm hard-pressed to find E-Cigs any less irritating than ordinary smoking.

Ecigs cause tons of litter from the refill cartridges and from the batteries. Ecigs are much worse of a pollution problem than actual cigarettes.

Really? It seems like every pack of 20 cigs, seemingly at least 10 of the filters end on the ground somewhere, apparently based on some kind of fanciful "Oh, this isn't litter somehow..." thinking.

At least with ecigs the batteries and cartridges probably end up in a trash bin instead of thrown on the ground like with cigarette butts. A single pack of cigarettes is 20 butts, and having been a smoker (and having known many other smokers), a good deal of butts are discarded wherever without care. Ecig components typically last longer than a single pack (an atomizer lasts longer than a pack of cigarettes, anywhere from 2-20 packs worth). A battery lasts longer and gets more use. So while ecig components will be thrown out, they are thrown away much less frequently than cigarette butts are thrown out.

To be clear, I no longer smoke.

How do you feel about Keurig K-Cups?

The, uh, reuseable and rechargeable batteries?

You're gonna have to source that claim, because that's insane to suggest. The pods are definitely bad for the environment, but relatively speaking when compared to, say, large-sized McDonalds cups or the dozens of cigarette butts a smoker may go through in a single day, one little 2cm by 2cm piece of plastic every few days doesn't seem like it should be top-of-mind.

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