4 ms·

> "many believe welcoming e-cigarette use in public places would erode the decades of progress made in banning public smoking." Assuming that the intent of ind

• seiji 13y ago
  e-cigarettes still emit a smelly, visual byproduct. The proponents claim "It's not smoke—it's vapor!" Just wait until you're sitting next to an 80 year old nam vet on an airplane who insists on "vaping" because "hey, it's not smoking."
  • kordless 13y ago
    Most juice is based on the same stuff in Febreze plus nicotine. It's not smoke. I've sat next to some smelly old ladies with horrible perfume on, but I'm certainly not going to compare it to something of known carcinogenic origins. Edit: speeling on my phone.
    • drdaeman 13y ago
      Is nicotine carcinogenic by itself? I didn't research the subject (I don't smoke) but always assumed the most dangers with cigarettes are from the burning byproducts.
      • nucleardog 13y ago
        Yes. But it's a hell of a lot less carcinogenic than cigarette smoke with all the other byproducts (tar, etc). It, surprisingly, however, may have some beneficial effects as well. The wikipedia article has the relevant sources/details.
        • jerf 13y ago
          See also http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine .
      • nobodysfool 13y ago
        It hasn't been scientifically proven. What has been proven is that it helps vascularize the existing cancerous mass.
  • mjn 13y ago
    I've had only limited "2nd-hand-ecig" experience, but I didn't really notice anything at all from across the table, nothing particularly offensive in any case. Certainly wasn't anything like a person smoking!
  • tptacek 13y ago
    It's not smoking.
  • jlgreco 13y ago
    "e-cigarettes still emit a smelly" Not to be overly crude, but so does my ass after I eat to much mexican food. So do my burps, after shotgunning a bunch of vodka-redbulls. As for visual byproduct.. would it be better if it were invisible? My behavior after too many vodka-redbulls is far more of a public nuisance, yet they still let me drink those indoors (actually, I am not allow to drink them outdoors. Weird.) Anyway, I have a few friends who use e-cigs. Can't say I notice it. My hypothesis here is that people primarily get bent out of shape over e-cigs because they feel that the users are "cheating", and nobody likes a cheater. That or they forget what somebody actually smoking is like.
    • wcfields 13y ago
      Yeah, but I don't go around farting/burping in peoples faces. So don't blow your e-vape shit in my zone. It's about common courtesy.
      • jlgreco 13y ago
        I really doubt that anybody here thinks that blowing in other peoples faces, with or without an e-cig or burp, is socially acceptable. The question isn't "can I burp in your face?", the question is "can I burp indoors?"
        • lambda 13y ago
          Farting or burping is something that is involuntary, natural, and brief. Smoking or vaporizing is something that people choose to do for extended periods of time, and doing so in an enclosed space, especially many people doing it at once, can fill air in that enclosed space with the byproducts, which may be harmful. If people drank something that made them burp constantly, permeated the air with the smell of those burps, and that vapor was harmful, then absolutely that should not be allowed (beer does not quite count; you don't generally burp continuously while drinking it, though it may cause an occasional burp, and it doesn't cause a lingering, carcinogenic vapor to permeate the space).
      • xradionut 13y ago
• lambda 13y ago
  They release vapors that contain nicotine into the atmosphere. There has been comparatively little study on the dangers of second hand nicotine vapor vs. secondhand smoke, but I would be hesitant to assume that there is no danger. I could also imagine that they could reduce the social pressure against smoking, as people would be seen happily puffing away on e-cigs which, from a distance, look an awful lot like regular cigarettes. Impressionable kids, people who have quit smoking but may be tempted to go back, etc. will now see smoking suddenly becoming socially acceptable again. Some people may see it and think that smoking is allowed wherever this is, and then light up a real cigarette. There's a further sort of puritanical attitude that many people have towards smoking, I think due to the fact that it was so prevalent and so obnoxious for much of the 20th century. Much as some people have a puritanical attitude about drinking (and we still have ridiculous laws stemming from that), that attitude may persist about smoking even if e-cigs turn out to be much less obnoxious than cigarettes. You have to remember, there are plenty of people who were non-smokers during the middle of the 20th century, when you couldn't go to a bar that wasn't saturated in smoke, where you had to breathe in secondhand smoke almost everywhere (even in the non-smoking section of restaurants, it would still waft over from the smoking section), where if you lent something to a smoker it would come back reeking of smoke. The idea of losing ground on the fight that was just recently won, of not allowing it in most indoor public places, makes non-smokers fairly anxious. Now, if it can be demonstrated that secondhand vapor from e-cigs is perfectly safe, and that it doesn't permeate the air with the same foul smell, then maybe their introduction would be welcomed. After all of the damage we've done over the years by rapidly accepting new technologies that wind up poisoning the air (see, for example, secondhand smoke, leaded gasoline, diacetyl, asbestos, the Great Smog of '52 and the continuing smog problems in Beijing today), we need to be less willing to simply assume that releasing something into the air we all breathe is perfectly safe, and instead only allow it once it has been demonstrated to be safe. As far as I can tell, e-cigs only started becoming popular in the last few years. While I'm fine with people using them in their own homes or outdoors (since there's a certain level of concentration below which it's not worth worrying about anything), I'd be very skeptical of accepting them in establishments in which smoking is not allowed without further study.
  • jlgreco 13y ago