Good luck keeping people from using them anywhere. They don't smell, so non-smokers aren't going to complain (I've been using e-cigs at work for two years and never received any complaints, in fact one person who sits five feet from me wasn't aware that I did it). The only people who've ever asked me to stop using them in restaurants and bars are staff (and only two instances in two years of regularly going out with e-cigs), and they're only doing it because they're afraid of getting into trouble with whatever regulators might crack down on them.
Electronic cigarettes should be left the hell alone. I've never seen a more successful smoking cessation tool. Trying to heavy-handedly 'regulate' them so they aren't as easy or affordable to use will only ensure that people keep smoking regular cigarettes. Of course, the more paranoid side of my brain reminds me that a lot of tax revenue comes from old fashioned cigarette sales, and perhaps governments will want to protect those revenues.
Just because you don't smell it doesn't mean they don't have a smell.
My ex-boss started smoking again after he discovered them. Guy puffed it like he was in a noir film, blew the vapor all over the place. They most definitely have a smell, and I'd often end up stinking of it when I got home from work.
Banning perfume would be nice while we are at it. If I can smell you in the elevator, and you are not in that elevator, then there is a problem. If e-cig "smell" qualifies it for a ban, then I cannot see any possible argument for not similarly banning indoor use of perfume.
Hell, let's just start off by banning everything that may pose any kind of risk and then only unban the things that are deemed safe and positive by our unbiased and benevolent leaders.
Although I'd rather biased people tell me I can do things than tell me I can't. Then I can make my own choices.
I'd rather err on the side of personal freedom, especially when those trying to decide how we live our lives may have an agenda. That agenda could often even be promoting a different industry's interests, for example banning internet poker was heavily pushed by the brick and mortar casinos.
a- e-cigarettes do smell. The fact that you have had few complaints may reflect the fact that people are courteous and do not like to get into arguments. I have very much liked to complain several times about e-cigarettes myself.
b- they almost certainly harm people around you although the harm may be less than that of secondary smoke.
c - your last argument obviously does not apply to the present situation. If you ban e-cigarettes in places where cigarettes are already banned, then this ban would not cause an e-cigarette smoker to start smoking ordinary cigarettes. In fact, the contrary is true -- if smokers can smoke e-cigarettes in places in situations where they cannot smoke ordinary cigarettes, that very well may result in an increase of smoking.
You can smoke your e-cigarettes in places and situations where cigarette smoking is allowed.
A - You sometimes get a whiff of the smell. 90%+ of the time a nonsmoker is going to like the smell because people vape things like cake and fruit flavors. Even smells people might find objectionable dissipate quickly. The stench doesn't hang on the users' clothing at all like regular cigarettes. I'm not sure what sort of situation you would have to be in to be bothered...
B - Got some proof that secondhand vapor causes harm? Here is reference to a published indoor air quality study showing:
"Comparisons of pollutant concentrations were made between e-cigarette vapor and tobacco smoke samples. Pollutants included VOCs, carbonyls, PAHs, nicotine, TSNAs, and glycols. From these results, risk analyses were conducted based on dilution into a 40 m3 room and standard toxicological data. Non-cancer risk analysis revealed “No Significant Risk” of harm to human health for vapor samples from e-liquids (A-D). In contrast, for tobacco smoke most findings markedly exceeded risk limits indicating a condition of “Significant Risk” of harm to human health. With regard to cancer risk analysis, no vapor sample from e-liquids A-D exceeded the risk limit for either children or adults. The tobacco smoke sample approached the risk limits for adult exposure."
There's more and more very positive research all the time. Ecig users shouldn't have to prove that it is 100% safe. It is pretty clearly far safer than smoking and a great benefit to the health of people who are unable or unwilling to quit.
C - "that very well may result in an increase of smoking."
You pointed towards a study commissioned by an e-cigarette users group in order to lobby their government. They use a completely arbitrary threshold of what is considered to not have considerable health risks. The study is only being published in an ecig industry journal.
The smell is disgusting, regardless of what the flavor is. The flavor is only there to try to mask the underlying smell, which is gross. Your assumpions about nonsmokers liking the smell are pretty baseless. Everyone i have talked to about it has disliked it intensly.
It is very nice that ecigs appear to be safer than cigarettes, but that does not mean i should be forced to breathe them. I already do not smoke.
"They use a completely arbitrary threshold of what is considered to not have considerable health risks."
No, this was done by researchers using established methods for assessing indoor air quality. It's pretty obvious that you are just a dishonest person, didn't crack open the research and just generally know nothing about this subject.
"The smell is disgusting, regardless of what the flavor is. The flavor is only there to try to mask the underlying smell, which is gross."
Nicotine, propylene glycol, glycerine and water are all basically odorless materials. The last 3 are ingredients in the types of fog machines used at concerts and also common food ingredients. You are either imagining things or lying.
>Your assumpions about nonsmokers liking the smell are pretty baseless.
Most people don't notice at all. I discretely but not secretly vape in restaurants/stores/etc. and have never once been told to stop doing it in over two years using ecigs. I have never once been told that someone was offended by the smell.
As others say, the smell is far weaker that after-lunch booze, deodorant, BO, auto exhaust, bad breath, leather, hand sanitizer, and to a vegetarian, meat.
Sure, you could sniff your coworkers to discover who ate corned beef, and who vaped at lunch, but neither is at the level that we'd call it offensive in an office setting.
The only reason people are complaining is because cigarettes are bad and by extension everything related to everything related is bad, and people love jumping on the bandwagon.
Excuse me? I know it's not reinforcing what you want to believe, but this isn't an echo chamber.
Coworkers are starting to smoke in small meeting rooms where you don't normally get the smell of lunches etc. It DOES smell unpleasant, though it's not nearly as bad as cigarette smoke. Fortunately my coworkers are gracious enough to shower every so often so I can't say that BO is a regular problem.
> Got some proof that secondhand vapor causes harm?
Why is "harm" needed? If I am next to you I'm not interested in you forcing me to take drugs. I don't need to demonstrate harm, I just don't want you to send me drugs.
At least put a filter on the thing so no nicotine comes out of it (i.e. you breath both in and out of it, through the filter).
"I'm not interested in you forcing me to take drugs."
You have got to be kidding me. Whatever amount of nicotine you are getting from secondhand vapor is TINY. You are not getting drugged. It has no psychoactive effects or addictive potential at that level.
Since that whole line of thinking is ridiculous, we consider harm. Being near cooking food, say your neighbors having a BBQ, exposes you to volatile N'-nitrosamines, similar to one of the groups of compounds shown to have some carcinogenic potential in smoking.
These types of things are not found in ecigs (or only in incredibly tiny amounts). There is no burning, carbon monoxide, etc. You are getting more harm from stuff like cleaning product fumes or other air pollution from cars/industry.
With almost no independent studies being done on e-cigs and their impact on the environment around you almost none of the claims you just made can be substantiated as either true or shown to be false.
We need more reliable data.
In general e-cigs should be restricted until they're proven safe. Basically treated like any other kind of cigarette. It is clear from this thread and elsewhere that smokers have zero consideration for others.
There's tons of credible evidence out there that ecigs do not contain most of the carcinogens in burning cigarettes. Even studies done by scientists with big pharma funding will at least mostly acknowledge this.
Ecigs are clearly not "100% safe" but the same goes for the food you eat and all other types of things you put in your body. it isn't about proving 100% safety. It's about showing a vast reduction in harm for people who are addicted to and dying from smoking.
Speaking of "zero consideration for others", anti-nicotine zealots take a quit or die stance. You would rather ban ecigs and force people back to smoking?
That's just ridiculous. I think exhaust pipes from traffic are of much more concern than e-cigs around us. Personally, I find offensive when get hit by a whiff of someone's BO more than e-cigs (which if aren't flavored I can't even tell if they are 'smoking' them).
I'm just curious, do you eat potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, or cauliflower? If so, you are already ingesting that evil, evil nicotine[1]. In all honesty, I doubt we would be put more at risk by inhaling any trace amounts of nicotine in secondhand vap than we would from interacting with everything else in our everyday lives. Hell, sitting in front of this computer and typing this response is probably shortening my lifespan more than a minuscule amount of nicotine.
Most of the existing evidence is produced by the e-cig industry. Hardly worth the paper it is written on.
As another poster said, we know that nicotine is harmful within its own right, so if e-cigs are throwing it out into the air in unknown quantities that is worrying.
>> Note also that this is an independent study which was not funded by any electronic cigarette company. The two funding sources were the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland and the National Institutes of Health. This adds objectivity and credibility to the work.
The results of this study are close to the evidence from studies funded by ecig companies, making those all the more credible too.
Your study only shows that ecigs are safer than cigarettes. That is probably true and nobody here is disputing that. However, this is not sufficient reason to exempt ecigs from smoking bans. Smoking bans are about protecting the health of non-smokers. And non-smokers do not want the harmful effects of ecigs even if those effects are significantly less than those of cigarettes.
You have absolutely zero evidence that what ecigs put out is harmful to people nearby. If I am in the same room as someone with a severe nut allergy and I am sitting there cracking open peanuts like mad, I could hurt someone else. Should we ban peanuts?
Ecigs aren't even as bad as peanuts because what is in them will never cause some sort of severe, instant reaction like to a person with nut allergies.
We know what is in this stuff. We can go far on the side of erring on caution and extrapolate from how much nicotine is in the liquid and how much people run through in a day, how much nicotine is being put into the air. I have studied this subject extensively. I know the research on how much nicotine gets absorbed into the lungs versus now much escapes. I know how much air a person cycles through breathing in an hour. I know that others are not "being drugged" by nicotine.
You are just a dishonest fearmonger. The few dangerous things that have been found in ecigs (stuff like acetaldehyde and formaldehyde) can be compared to the cancer risks from the other components of tobacco smoke as well as other carcinogens and chemicals which pose a cardiovascular risk.
See J Fowles and E Dybing. Application of toxicological risk assessment principles to the chemical constituents of cigarette smoke. Tob. Control, Dec 2003; 12: 424 - 430.
By far the worst cancer causer in tobacco smoke is 1,3-butadiene. This will be exhaled in smoke and also given off in "sidestream smoke" (the cigarette sits there burning). There is no smoke at all with ecigs and no sidestream vapor, because the vapor is triggered by the user and goes only into their lungs first.
1,3-butadiene is given off from things like having a campfire or BBQ-ing. Should we ban campfires and BBQs? What people are being exposed to is worse than ecigs.
When talking about the ability of substances to cause cancer it's always important to talk quantitatively, because there are a huge number of things that cause cancer and most have effects too subtle to worry about. In the case of nicotine it may cause cancer in humans at the levels smokers experience, but even so it's way less carcinogenic than alcohol, for example. Smoke of all sorts, on the other hand, is horribly carcinogenic and you can make a good argument for banning wood-burning stoves in cities.
As they say, the dose makes the poison. So far, I don't see any evidence that exhaled e-cigarette vapor contains more than a trivial amount of nicotine. That nicotine could be a hazard for the user, but as far as I can tell you'd have a hell of a time getting a significant dose from passive vaping.
If you're looking to avoid even trace amounts of nicotine, staying away from smokers isn't enough. You should probably avoid eating anything in the nightshade family (e.g. eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers). It's worth noting these foods contain other toxic alkaloids in low doses too—other parts of the plants with higher concentrations are inedible.
The relevant question here is this: is exhaled vapor from nearby e-cigarette users a significant health risk? How does it compare to other environmental hazards?
Your curry chicken lunch smells, your perfume smells, and your farts smell. It's not about being courteous. Complaining about it just makes you a douche bag. There is a point when a thing is allowed to smell.
>The fact that you have had few complaints may reflect the fact that people are courteous and do not like to get into arguments.
Not 'few' complaints. NO complaints. In 2+ years of regular use. The two cases where I've been asked to stop using them were from people who felt it was their job to do so, not because of any complaint.
>they almost certainly harm people around you although the harm may be less than that of secondary smoke.
[citation needed, really. I'd love to see it.]
>if smokers can smoke e-cigarettes in places in situations where they cannot smoke ordinary cigarettes, that very well may result in an increase of smoking.
I think you're confused about what electronic cigarettes are. Electronic cigarettes do not produce smoke, so it's impossible for them to increase 'smoking.' They produce vapor. It's like saying that the steam rising from your coffee cup is 'smoke,' so all people with coffee should only be able to drink coffee in places where smoking is permitted.
a? Eh? New's to me. I will inform the person sitting next to me smoking an e-cig that it's smelly.
That's unfair actually. I really rather like the myriad of scents he has. Mint, butterscotch, raspberry. I kinda wanted to try it, but I don't actually smoke anything.
b? maybe? The smoke is the issue, really.
c? maybe? At least the smoker I know deliberately pushes down the nicotine ratio he gets from his supplier.
You can argue for erring on the side of safety, but the level of safety you are talking about is unreasonable. What we can say going in, what we know about how cigarettes cause cancer, suggest to us strongly that e-cigs are safer. It is reasonable to act that that assumption, even if there is a possibility that something horrible would be revealed about them later.
"b- they almost certainly harm people around you although the harm may be less than that of secondary smoke."
E-cigs do not harm people in anyway, shape, or form. E-cigs are simply water, nicotine, and flavoring to make them taste a certain way (cherry, coffee, vanilla etc).
I stupidly started smoking at 16 and now at 21, they really have helped me quit. I am all for smoking (electronic or otherwise) outside to respect other people's "airspace", but they are not harmful at all. End of story.
The only harmful "second hand" aspect of them could be people inhaling small doses of nicotine vapor.
E-cigs are NOT just water, nicotine, and flavoring. They contain propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, nicotine, flavoring, and sometimes water. Your bottles of e-juice should say this on them, actually.
I smoke Blu's and here are the ingredients in the Vanilla flavor; Distilled Water, Nicotine, Natural & Artificial Flavors, Glycerin and Citric Acid.
There is absolutely nothing, in this ingredient list, that is harmful to humans on the level that actual cigarettes (or rightly named, "cancer sticks") are. The glycerin the is only cause for concern, but glycerin is used in so many different products that it is healthy enough for human consumption.
"E-cigs are NOT just water, nicotine, and flavoring"
Ya, they basically are just that.
I love how you cut off the sentence in order to mislead:
> While no epidemiological evidence supports that nicotine alone acts as a carcinogen in the formation of human cancer, research over the last decade has identified nicotine's carcinogenic potential in animal models and cell culture.
It then goes on to say:
> Nicotine has been noted to directly cause cancer through a number of different mechanisms such as the activation of MAP Kinases.[76] Indirectly, nicotine increases cholinergic signalling (and adrenergic signalling in the case of colon cancer[77]), thereby impeding apoptosis (programmed cell death), promoting tumor growth, and activating growth factors and cellular mitogenic factors such as 5-LOX, and EGF. Nicotine also promotes cancer growth by stimulating angiogenesis and neovascularization.[78][79] In one study, nicotine administered to mice with tumors caused increases in tumor size (twofold increase), metastasis (nine-fold increase), and tumor recurrence (threefold increase).
While it was dishonest to cut the sentence off in the middle, the lack of epidemiological evidence basically puts nicotine in the same camp as a ton of other substances that have "carcinogenic potential" but aren't considered a risk. Basically, it's plausible that nicotine is carcinogenic to some degree, but with the carcinogenicity of tobacco explained entirely by other factors, there's no real reason to believe that it's a significant risk, especially for bystanders.
Tobacco came under the watch of the FDA since the 2009 tobacco bill. Right now, ecigs are basically not regulated at all. They are considered "unregulated tobacco products". There is a movement within the industry to regulate ourselves, but the FDA will probably step in no matter what.
At the end of every year, the government sort of lists its plans for the year. The past two year, the FDA has said that they would "deem" ecigs in April and get the ball rolling toward regulation but it hasn't happened yet.
Ecigs are a threat to ineffective methods of quitting smoking like patches and gums, so big pharma initially got behind total prohibition. The FDA lost in court on ecigs being medical devices, but the ruling only technically applies to the one company involved, so customs still seizes shipments of equipment coming in from China. Adoption is still growing rapidly, witht he total market in the US this year projected to double to over $1 billion.
Big tobacco has now started to enter the market. Swisher Sweets has a brand of ecig. Lorillard bought a major player called Blu and Reynolds is poised to enter at some point. Altria/Phillip Morris hasn't done much yet, but all of these companies are also marketing products they hope to get the classification "reduced exposure" and "modified risk" such as wood sticks coated with tobacco goop and candy-like lozenges.
A lot of ecig companies are tiny and scared of burdensome regulation which will put them out of business.
If I were a cigarette company executive I'd be attempting to corner the market on providing e-cig fluid and doing my darnedest to keep it as unregulated as possible.
This is actually a great opportunity for the tobacco industry to turn a new page and shed its current image. More so if it definitively turns out that the exhaled vapor of e-sigs are not harmful to others and the user.
Should that be the case, and it'll take a while for that to be proven (AND if that's actually the case), and the marketing is done properly - the tobacco industry could go from reviled death dealers to the same societal image Starbucks has (to be blunt: providers of tasty psychoactive chemicals generally considered safe in moderation).
It's the innovators dilemma. Very difficult to support a new technology that threatens your billions in revenue and profit.
They're surely only getting involved in the e-cig market for defensive reasons. I could certainly see them lobbying behind the scenes to slow the market down, if not kill it entirely.
I've seen a neuro surgeon use (smoke?) one in an operating theatre - this crosses a line I think. However I suspect he was daring someone to call him on it.
I would rather have a surgeon working on me in the relaxed, focused state of mind that comes after few drags of an ecig than a surgeon working on me with the shaky, irritable mind of someone craving a cigarette.
E-Cigarettes are are excellent litmus test for the prohibitionist brigade - it shows clearly that it's not about safety or health, it's about control and some misguided puritan ideal.
How do you know that it is not about safety or health? Do you have any study that says they are safe? It is amazing how many delusions a little marketing can create.
But the reason cigarettes are banned is because they affect other people.
American rules/regulations aren't built around the concept of proving something is safe. Tobacco is different from the norm because of how much evidence exists to prove its harm
We do know e-cigs are much less harmful than cigarettes. We have a range of outcomes of studies regarding second-hand smoke. We have very good reasons to think stray e-cig vapor is much less harmful than second hand smoke.
It is at least plausible that the risks of e-cig users around you is negligible, especially compared to your dry-cleaned suit, the air quality of the airplane you flew on, the radon in your house, etc.
In that context, don't you find it curious that the negative reaction is so strong against the idea that people who enjoy a nicotene buzz can have their cake and eat it, too?
To me it doesn't look like caution. It looks like a bluenose impulse to control people for what is likely to be no good reason, and is well below the threshold for regulating access to other psychoactive substances.
Now if people really are motivated only by protecting other people from a significant new source of risk, then I'm sorry. But, man, it sure looks like e-cigs are a touchstone for revealing prohibitionists.
It is a fallacy to assume that everyone who disagrees with you on a position is part of a unified front. All that the e-cig situation proves is that some people who are anti-tobacco are irrational. Not exactly shocking news, considering how few people are rational in general.
"Local governments are already taking steps to limit e-smoking in places where traditional smoking is banned"
For no health reason, but for governments to demonstrate their power and how they are doing something - a bit like the pre-flight security theater.
The fact that we have a technological replacement better than the original (ie no tars or carcinogens) while giving the sample pleasure (nicotine, inhaling) should be ground enough to change the laws in the other direction - ie allowing e-cigarattes wherever they are possible..
Why I am not surprised the government will fight against it, regardless of the scientific facts or the right to pursue happiness?
EDIT: From the original article "The FDA has said that it plans to assert regulatory authority over electronic cigarettes" - just like every government agency looking for a piece of the cake, while consumers will suffer.
"Smoking tobacco is the most dangerous voluntary activity in the world. More than 5m people die every year of the consequences. That is one death in ten."
Want to save human lives? Don't regulate e-cigarettes- in fact, it might be a better idea to GIVE THEM AWAY in poor countries instead of spending the same amount to procure them with expansive drugs that may help at best a hundred people per year (cancer drugs are expansive, and except in specific cases their efficiency is limited. we still have a lot to learn).
Since people will consume tobacco products anyway, we might as well give them the good stuff that won't give them cancer, our last technology - that's e-cigarettes, instead of exporting the old foul smelling plant.
We are talking about the potential to save 5'000'000 humans
every year.
It should be about helping people, not just subsidizing the agricultural industry or making feel good but ultimately counter-productive actions.
But reason won't prevail. It will be a sad thing to watch.
EDIT2: I originally said "it is about", which is an incorrect formulation since it could be interpreted as a statement on how current systems work. It was ironic, and may not have been very clear.
The FDA should most definitely regulate e-cigs in some way. If not the vaporizers, then certainly the fluid. At the very least, I would want my country's regulatory body (Canadian here) to at least enforce labeling and quality standards (if you claim your fluid is 95% propylene glycol, and 5% nicotine concentrate, then you better be selling that). As a customer, I do not have the expertise, equipment, nor funding to do this testing myself, just as I do not have the expertise, equipment, nor funding to determine if ibuprofen actually has the stated amount of active ingredient, that my free range chicken actually is free range chicken, that my nicotine patches contain nicotine, etc.
I believe he means the FDA will impose restrictions that will reduce the use of e-cigarettes. Not precisely what "regulate" means, but a common connotation.
There are already FDA regulations which severely restrict their advertising, FTA:
"The companies are not allowed to market them as smoking cessation devices because that would put them in the category of other nicotine replacement products that are regulated by the FDA, such as nicotine gum or patches," Felberbaum says.
Certianly this slows down their adoption. This is his point: FDA restricting something harmful without regard for harm reduction. This kills people, in the net.
I think you are quite confused about the issue. This is not a restriction imposed by the FDA, this is a restriction manufacturers impose on themselves. There would be no problem marketing those cigarettes as smoking cessation devices, they would then just fall under the same rules as other such devices (nicotine patches, gum) and manufacturers don’t want that.
That’s the issue. Surely, if those cigarettes are marketed as smoking cessation devices they should have to follow the same rules as other such devices have to follow.
As to why those devices are more tightly regulated? Well, duh. They claim to have a medical effect. If you want to claim that you better, well …
This seemed perfectly clear from this passage in the article. You seem to be quite confused about it.
There would be no problem marketing those cigarettes as smoking cessation devices, they would then just fall under the same rules as other such devices (nicotine patches, gum) and manufacturers don’t want that.
If they are being deterred, then maybe the FDA regulation is too burdensome.
Well, that’s a nice get-out-of-jail-free card for those manufacturers, isn’t it?
I’m sorry, but if you want to claim that something is a smoking cessation device you better back it up with solid evidence. If you don’t want to, you can still sell it, but don’t claim it’s something you didn’t prove it is.
All reputable manufacturers provide GC/MS data for their e-liquids. The best own their own analytical laboratories and provide test data for every manufactured batch. I double-dog-dare you to find any industry with higher standards of transparency and integrity.
E-cigarettes are nicotine delivery devices and nicotine promotes cancer growth. And yes there is secondary inhalation with e-cigarettes. You probably would not call it secondary smoke, but whatever is being vaporized by the e-cigarette gets exhaled by the user and then inhaled by other non-users in the area. I worked closely with an e-cigarette smoker once and I could definitely feel it.
E-cigarette proponents say that because e-cigarettes do not burn anything, they are safer than cigarettes. That is probably true, but safer does not mean safe. They are definitely not safe as the main substance they are intended to deliver -- nicotine -- is itself unsafe.
So until there are studies that show that there is no danger to others in the environment all smoking bans should apply to e-cigarettes.
Nicotine is, itself, pretty damned safe. There is currently no epidemiological evidence to support a direct link between nicotine and cancer. There are reasons to believe it can plausibly cause cancer from animal models, but there's no good reason to think that it is more carcinogenic than a boatload of other things.
The main reason that nicotine "feels" significantly likely to cause cancer is its association with tobacco. But there's already a perfectly adequate explanation for the carcinogenicity of tobacco. So it's important to resist the affect heuristic[0] which makes us tend to find all things associated with tobacco "cancery".
In addition, it's extremely doubtful that you'd get any nicotine second-hand from someone using an e-cigarette.
Nicotine is not a carcinogen, i.e. nicotine does not promote cancer growth. The carcinogen in cigarettes is the "tar", which is absent from E-cigarettes.
Indirectly, nicotine increases cholinergic signalling (and adrenergic signalling in the case of colon cancer[77]), thereby impeding apoptosis (programmed cell death), promoting tumor growth, and activating growth factors and cellular mitogenic factors such as 5-LOX, and EGF. Nicotine also promotes cancer growth by stimulating angiogenesis and neovascularization.[78][79] In one study, nicotine administered to mice with tumors caused increases in tumor size (twofold increase), metastasis (nine-fold increase), and tumor recurrence (threefold increase).[80]
It may not cause cancer directly, but it does sound pretty toxic and does help cancer growth. There might be a "safe" upper limit at which inhaling secondary smoke from e-cigarettes would have an insignificant impact, but we need more studios.
You would probably take in more nicotine from eating a meal of eggplant than you would get from secondhand vapor. You wouldn't get enough from secondhand vapor to have psychoactive effects, let alone come anywhere near toxicity. Here is some reference to an indoor air quality showing vaping to not harm other people: www.ivaqs.com
All sorts of things we take in can "promote cancer growth". Nicotine by itself is so far from a carcinogen that IARC doesn't even investigate it as one. There are roughly 50 components of tobacco and tobacco smoke called the "Hoffman analytes" which are the carcinogens. There are studies showing the relative cardiovascular and cancer risk, and the worst carcinogens are produced by burning plant material. These are not present in ecigs.
Some studies which are dubious because of the choice of equipment and researchers not simulating the way ecigs are actually used have shown a handful of components way down the list of dangerous ingredients. Other studies have been done where these didn't even show up, but we are talking about things like formaldehyde and acetaldehyde near the level put out by smoking. If you compare the cancer risk of these to smoking, you are still looking at less than 5% of the cancer risk of smoking (probably under 1% really).
You'll be hard pressed to find anything stimulatory/anabolic that does not stimulate already existing cancers. The simplest example, protein consumption can also promote cancer growth (I can find a ref if pressed, I'm just lazy right now).
On the other hand, this study found that a high protein, low carb diet can reduce cancer growth in mice[1]. This is not to say that what you said is inaccurate. I just see your comment and the first thing I think is "uh oh, can I still eat paleo?"
Given that anabolism can promote tumor growth, do weightlifters tend to have more intense bouts of cancer?
Remember that a high protein low carb diet is significantly different from a normal high carb high protein diet.
As to the second point the best answer I can give you is maybe. Unfortunately different cancers have completely different mechanisms, while high protein may be bad for mammary cancers it might be good for bone cancers. So it's really situational.
So what you're telling me is I can't have complete knowledge or control over my life? How am I going to live forever, then??
Edit: but seriously, thanks for the response. I think a lot of people are torn by trying to make basic decisions like this, and making sense of conflicting findings is pretty frustrating. Seems like a lot of carbs is bad, though, so I'm going to go with that.
If you consider e-cigs a harm reduction device, the carcinogenic potential of standalone nicotine dwarves that of traditional cigarettes.
More research is needed but all the evidence so far points to e-cigs being safer than cigarettes for those who can not kick the habit. But the passive smoking impact is a very valid point and needs to be studied.
It shows that the amount of passive vapor is extremely low. Though it should be mentioned that it was commissioned by flavourart, a major eliquid producer.
Your deodorant is "drugging" me significantly more. Same for your car. If you use neither then something else you use is forcing more chemicals into my body than second hand e-smoke would.
Car yes, deodorant no. Not all chemicals are created equally, and it doesn't help anyone to make unfair comparisons.
I do sympathise with the smokers here, who see e-cigarettes as a compromise, but ultimately it's a compromise that non-smokers shouldn't have to make, because like everyone should have the right to do to their own body what they want, they also don't have the right to passively drug someone else and impose your own choices on other people. That's not okay.
My comment was a response to "But it should be illegal for a 3rd party to force someone to take a drug."
So my claim stands even if deodorant is less harmful in tiny amounts than vapor in tiny amounts.
However, if you were wondering, it has not been proven that tiny amounts of vapor are more dangerous than tiny amounts of deodorant. In fact it seems likely that both have negligible effects on health.
So you're equating somebody expelling water vapour laced with minute quantities nicotine with the phrases "drugging everyone near them" and "force someone to take a drug"? Way to ratchet up the rhetoric. Using such emotive and inflammatory language isn't going to get the discussion anywhere.
I'm not sure that's true. You can buy caffeine pill over the counter. Energy drinks surely have nothing to do with food and everything to do with delivering caffeine and other stimulants. You can put vodka in a vaporizer and get stupid drunk in seconds. In these cases you have to ask if it crosses the line into being a drug that can be regulated.
E-cig makers, at least, can argue that e-cigs are a form of harm reduction. Maybe energy drinks, too, if they keep you from falling asleep at the wheel, but that's more tenuous.
I very much enjoy the trend of "tobacco as low class and bad". I can finally go places without inhaling crap and washing my smoked hair and clothes afterwards.
You are correct. While proofreading I realized my irony might cause confusion, so I edited it away. My apologies, I upvoted you since you present a solution.
There are many things in the health system I find highly illogical, and sometimes I use irony instead of simply presenting the case and possible solutions.
There are in fact various metrics to which programs should be judged against; while they differ by country trying to save the as much years of life at the lowest possible cost is usually well accepted.
It is changing due to the wider dissemination of information, but it is a slow process uprooting entrenched organizations that serve as jobs programs more than accomplishing their stated goals.
Reliable statistics on the lung cancer danger of smoking have always been difficult to find ... particularly for second-hand smoke ... possibly because it's easier to blame cigs than to find real numbers for the hundreds of carcinogens we're all regularly exposed to, all day long, wherever. Society must have its scapegoats, and smokers are a (relatively powerless) minority.
The lung cancer statistics I've seen usually for cig-smoking fall around 3 per 100,000 for second-hand smoke and about 50 per 100,000 for a half-pack-a-day smoker. Considering what's in E-cigs, the risks are, at worst, a very tiny fraction of these numbers.
So yes, for E-cigs, "For no health reason, but for governments to demonstrate their power and how they are doing something" is a very likely explanation. But consider the insane response to global warming, and what more should we expect?
Surely it should be regulated. What if somebody's e-cig juice formulation consisted of asbestos and ebola? The idea that e-cigs must be safe because they are not tobacco is far more hysterical about the possible dangers of smoking than the idea that the FDA should be regulating them. I want the FDA to regulate mascara, too, which is also not tobacco.
Yes, through testing, followed by inspections, followed by endorsements or shutdowns as needed. Also, since the sequester, I wouldn't trust that they aren't putting asbestos into your muffin.
I quit smoking 1.5 packs a day about 120 days ago, and started out with 36mg nicotine/ml e-liquid, and have cut down to 6mg/ml e-liquid. In another month, I should be off nicotine completely.
I use a eGo Twist/iClear16 (w/ iClear30 heads) at work, and CCTS/IGO-L at home. The variety of flavors are endless, and none smell up the office, my home, hands, or clothes. Even if they did stink as bad as regular smokes, who would really complain about smelling Watermelon, Pear & Honey, Ecto Cooler (yes!) or Swedish Fish when they come to visit me?
After switching, I don't:
1. Smell like an ashtray
2. Lose my breath walking up a few sets of stairs
3. Take several 15 minute breaks at work
4. Spend $300(!) per month
5. Have fears of emphysema and/or lung cancer in my future.
are there any completely nicotine free e-cigarettes? I'm tempted to start using them just for the fun of inhaling and exhaling smoke and having something between my fingers to fiddle with...
This is half in jest, but I used to be a smoker, and one aspect I really enjoyed was the whole ceremony involved with smoking. The habitual aspect of it (something to do when you're waiting for somebody, something to twiddle with...) was perhaps stronger than the physical addiction when I quit.
http://www.mtbakervapor.com is dirt-cheap, very good, and has a zero nicotine option for all their juices. I recommend Orange Dream Bar, Hot Chocolate, or Ecto Cooler.
The rush of moral righteousness and overall feeling of superiority that non-smokers must get when they are agitating are obvious very addictive and I think that should be regulated.
It's amazing how far the brainwashing have gone in regards to anything remotely smoking related. Otherwise sensible and thinking people throw out all sense of consideration, respect and balance and start repeating "Smoking is bad, smoking should be banned", no matter what the consequences are.
And when we are talking about e-cig it is very clear to me that none of the objections are about health or genuine care for those affected, at all. At best, the supporting arguments for that are severe exaggerations - which should be obvious with minimum of critical thinking.
As an asthmatic, e-cigarettes induce my asthma just as well as normal cigarettes, it only takes a longer time to have the same quantitative effect. I do hope they get regulated, and soon, because this is seriously going to hamper my ability to enjoy social activities.
The lack of odor is actually problematic. I was not able to quit a place before the inset of an asthmatic attack in a couple of restaurants because I didn't smell anything until it was too late.
I'm actually used to that (several substances do the same), but it's only in the last year or so that I increasingly attributed that to e-cigarettes because people feel "it's ok".
Even if I wasn't asthmatic, I would still be pissed as hell to be sniffing nicotine just for the addiction of somebody else. It's not a drug powder that you can contain and keep it to yourself.
I'm as anti-smoking as they come, and it enrages me that Greece is stuck in the middle ages in that regard. People smoke everywhere, inside and out, and you can't go to a bar without inhaling loads of smoke. I would like nothing better than to see smoke-free indoors environments, but smokers here have a huge sense of entitlement, their mindset being "if it bothers you, go somewhere else".
All that said, there's no reason to ban e-cigarettes. They don't smell, they don't make my eyes/throat hurt, they aren't obtrusive in any way, unless you're trying to inhale the other person's smoke as it comes out of their nose. As long as it doesn't bother other people, it shouldn't be banned, and e-cigarettes don't bother other people.
Some of them don't smell (or at least the odor isn't nearly as much of an issue). There is at least one that my boss uses all day long that make it so that anyone within 40 feet of him knows it. I have no idea what kind he's managed to find though as it has no labeling and some bizarre cartridge.
I'd be happy if you asked him what he smokes for me. I stopped smoking a pipe half a year ago (earlier I was smoking cigs) and I sometimes miss that heavy, but quite good smelling smoke from the pipe.
I will next time I remember, but he's notorious for being hard to find when you want to ask him something. It looks ALMOST like this[1] but is larger. The cartridges are about like this[2] but the body is that thick all the way down. Given the fact that he's said before he goes through a cartridge a day I suspect he's gone and found whatever the largest capacity one there is, possibly from outside the US (at least I wouldn't put that past him).
Spain was exactly like that until a few years ago, especially that "go somewhere else" bit. Going out is sooo much better now.
I used to have a shower after I got home, besides the one I took before going out, because if I didn't, my sheets would stink throughout all the week; and I wasn't even going to heavily crowded bars, just restaurants.
Love love love my e-cig. No one has a clue in the office.
I quit smoking quite a while back, but I still had cheaters from time to time. I really think nicotine has a much more permanent effect on the brain than we are led to believe.
If you don't smoke, don't go near the stuff, but if you do, you really should try it.
For what it's worth they now make smokeless hookah. It's basically stones that are pressure injected with flavored vegetable oil, and they're free of tobacco and nicotine.
It isn't vegetable oil. Hydrocarbon oils would be dangerous to inhale potentially. This would be closer to ecigs than a regular hookah and hookah is safer than cigarettes because you are vaporizing versus burning. Still this is probably a bit mroe dangerous than ecigs because you still have burning coals.
They're an interesting one in terms of 'should you use them around non-smokers', as there's no statistics on exhaled contents of nicotine (that I've seen) so it's quite difficult to make a call in terms of second hand health risk. First hand health risk? It's your body so do what you want.
There's other issues, do they smell? Yes, some do, they have flavourings in that will impart a smell. However it's quite faint in a lot of cases, it bothers my girlfriend in the car but not at home. Is it anti-social? Depends on the social group you're in, I generally hang around with smokers (maybe there's some selection bias inherent in social groupings due to the smoking ban) and a couple of us have shifted to e-cigarettes (traditional style and vape style) and no one minds. I wouldn't use one in a restaurant but I would in a pub or nightclub.
Hopefully they'll avoid regulating them for a while, but there's rumblings of regulation on the horizon in the EU.
>The FDA warns that more research needs to be done on the health risks of inhaling liquid nicotine.
> "The FDA has said that it plans to assert regulatory authority over electronic cigarettes. And that could lead to them being regulated in the same way as cigarettes as far as marketing is concerned," Felberbaum says.
This is odd. For one, we know the health risks of nicotine patches, and we know the health risks of the alternative to e-cigarettes, which carries very large known risks. For that reason alone we should celebrate these little devices.
Further, what the hell is the FDA doing? I thought this would be for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
A nit, we actually know very little about nicotine since most of the studies are about tobacco use. Further, it's almost impossible to find subjects who use(d) nicotine but not tobacco. However, Sweden has a large percentage of people who use snus with little ill effect, and is one of the better sources of data on purer nicotine (but snus is still tobacco, just a purer form).
Also, we know that inhaling smoke is bad and that tobacco smoke is bad, but we don't know about hot vapor so much, let alone hot nicotine vapor. There is more research needed here and I look forward to it. It's pretty safe to assume though that it's safer than cigarettes.
Nicotine isn't an alcohol, tobacco, firearm, or explosive. It's a drug.
It's also fair to request additional research into an inhalant version of a drug. I wouldn't want an FDA that immediately celebrates a product without properly researching it.
I cannot believe how many people still buy cigarettes and smoke though. Stand and watch at your local drugstore how many people come in within 15 minutes to buy cigarettes.
If they are addicted then the industry failed at helping them quit and the government needs to force the industry to provide direct free assistance to quit. It's not a game where they should be able to keep making profit off known death.
Have you ever met someone who didn't know cigarettes are addictive and dangerous?
They print it all right there on the box, and at the bottom of every advertisement (are there even still cigarette ads? I never see them around), and you can't complete school without being told over and over how dangerous they are. I think these days the cigarette companies don't even need to do anything. Cigs are there, if you want them they're easy to find, everyone knows what they do, some will still choose to smoke them.
Yes, my grandfather. Back then, the dangers of smoking were not well known by the public. In fact, the tobacco industry pushed bogus research to attempt to throw the conclusion that smoking causes cancer into doubt. Once it was apparent that smoking was harmful, my grandfather quit smoking cold turkey.
It was too late. He spent more than a decade coughing up his lungs only to finally succumb to cancer, weakened by the steroids keeping him alive to the point where he broke his back picking up a gallon of milk.
Not by a long shot. I've been a smoker for more than half my life, and while I still am, since I've moved to another city that frowns upon smoking in your own apartment, I've become far more cognisant of the smell - not that I was completely ignorant to it.
Nicotine vaporizers have no scent that I've ever been aware of. I've had a couple myself, and they have found quite a bit of popularity in my neighborhood very recently. You can't even tell someone is smoking one unless you see them take a puff. As far as I've been able to tell, there is no scent.
Some liquids leave a bad smell, most do not. There's about 8 of us in my office that smoke them (inside) and no one had an issue with it until recently when we got some new liquids and they DID smell. So we took them outside until we got back to our regular liquids.
I think people just need to have some common decency.
Of course they smell. Nearly everything has some smell, me and you included. It's just that you happen to dislike this particular smell. I know how it is - the smell of raw meat makes me puke almost instantly. But... It's my problem, you know? I'm not going around trying to ban making meals from raw meat (really, I can smell even if the kitchen is quite far away). Disliking e-cigs smell - which one? there's tons of them... - is your problem. I think mine is more serious - think of what I feel when I have to feed my dog! - and so I don't think your moaning about is needed or even worth listening.
Nope, they don't. They don't smell like much of anything since they emit water vapor and not smoke. At the most, they might smell a little bit like the cartridge flavor (watermelon, cherry, whatever..)
I was at an event recently where a man a few feet away was smoking an e-cigarette. After a while I noticed a sickly sweet smell coming (I think) from the cigarette. I found it very unpleasant. When I got home I searched for info about the smell, but mostly what I read was that e-cigarettes produce no odor, or at most a mild sweet one. Maybe I'm more sensitive than most to the smell -- it didn't seem mild to me -- or maybe it had to do with being in a confined space. If anyone else finds the smell repellent I'd be interested to know that I'm not the only one.
They do not smell like traditional cigarettes. The Blu eCigs I have smelled are very aromatic, almost like pipe tabacco or hookah. They smell a whole lot better than traditional cigarettes and the smell is less strong but some people still may not like it.
Wow, I miss smoking, maybe this is how to get that clear lucid feeling back but without the health risks. I know it would be regulated, the government needs to make its two cents too. Right?
That clear lucid feeling is your brain being relieved of its addiction withdrawal. Non-smokers never have that feeling because their brain has never been exposed to it. Read Allen Carr to help you never want a cigarette again.
I think long-term smokers have a permanently-affected brain, it will be interesting to see future studies.
I have no experience with psychoactive drugs but I don't think it's anywhere as near as drastic. It's pretty easy to deal with psychologically as smoking is a lifestyle so quitting successfully mostly involves changing your lifestyle. Nicotine leaves your system completely fairly quickly with no side affects except for what I believe is a lingering sensitivity to the memory of it.
Sometimes I wonder if I am at a disadvantage because I don't smoke! It would be nice to be able to call on the clear and lucid feeling when I sit down to work or need to think something through.
You're not. It's like having a mini-hangover every hour or so and the only cure is to have just one more shot of vodka. Forever.
Or another analogy. It's like having a really bad headache, taking some aspirin, and getting a 'clear and lucid' head after it takes effect. Wouldn't it be better just not to have the headache in the first place?
"Clear and lucid" isn't a phrase I'd use, and when I haven't had a smoke for a while I generally don't really notice it - for me it's more about habits than physical withdrawal symptoms. The chemical thing that I love is the slight rush a cigarette brings if you haven't smoked in a while.
Cigarettes are obviously bad and a stupid thing to do, but there are people (including myself) who genuinely enjoy them, we aren't just addicted and using them to get back to level zero.
Spot on! The only time I smoke is on a Friday night with a pint of ale and I enjoy smoking my weekly roll ups far too much to consider quitting. I know the health risks, but when I live in London and inhale car fumes for an hour whilst cycling to and from work everyday, the pleasures I get from smoking few cigarettes on a friday night exceed the health implications by a long way!
I have no idea how the alcohol industry gets away with it tbh...I guess they have some serious lobbying power, in fact I know a lot of the anti-drug campaigns are driven by the alcohol industry, one of their biggest threats is probably cannabis!
I want to see the excuse for banning these from being used indoors. It'll probably be along the lines of "children will be influenced or something". Gotta love the nanny state - not!
Doesn't the 2nd-hand vapor contain nicotine, just as the vapor inhaled by the user does? Maybe less than from a cigarette (or maybe not?), but still some.
Nicotine is an addictive, potentially toxic drug, with some possible beneficial effects, and some definite harmful effects. I'd like to be able to choose for myself whether I'm going to inhale it.
How is "I want to choose which drugs I expose myself to" an expression of the nanny state?
If you want to consume a drug in public, figure out how to do so in such a way that you don't share it with bystanders against their will. We already have patches, gum, snuff, chaw; if you really want to inhale it as a vapor, why can't you do that in private?
Nicotine is harmful in high doses, like > 10g. Cigarettes have something close to 1mg of it. You get intoxicated and die for all the other crap in it way before Nicotine is a problem.
I wasn't able to find the relevant page in Google books, but I did see a snippet that seemed to say that some of the other chemicals in cigarette smoke may actually have a protective effect against nicotine toxicity.
Gosselin RE (1988). Clinical toxicology of Commercial Products. VI.ed Baltimore, Williams & Wilkins: 311-313.
That's just toxicity. Nicotine can cause insomnia and various other side effects. It obviously induces dependence. Someone shouldn't have to be exposed to that involuntarily.
> Someone shouldn't have to be exposed to that involuntarily.
I wish I had the same right to not be exposed to agrotoxics, growth hormones and antibiotics from the meat, xenoestrogen present in all damn plastic and airborne lead from exhausts.
Maybe if the government really cared about well-being they would be regulating those, instead of wasting time with e-cigarrettes, no?
Airborne lead from exhaust? I take it you're not in North America, where the governments banned tetraethyllead in the 1970s through 1990s, or in the EU, where it was banned in 2000 (most individual countries banned it earlier), or ...? Even Serbia banned it a couple years ago. According to Wikipedia, only in Algeria is it still used in gasoline.
Wasting time on what we all know to be near meaningless makes you a concern troll.
I'm all for regulating what you can inflict on those downwind of you, but if you called the city inspectors because you were worried about second-hand e-cig vapor they'd arrive in a car that produced literally thousands of times more known deadly toxins.
We definitely should start testing common things people use like deodorant, makeup, hairspray, e-cigs, etc. But if we do it in order of suspected toxicity you'll be waiting a while for those results. And if you read the list of things to worry about and get to where second-hand vapor is even visible on the cost/benefit scale, you will have to be living in a bubble.
More likely along the lines of other people not wanting to breathe your second-hand nicotine / whatever the hell else might be in this vapor, because the jury's still out on their safety.
The major component of the secondhand vapor would be glycerin and/or propylene glycol. In extreme cases you might inhale entire milligrams of the stuff. Both substances are safe enough to be in the FDA's 'Generally Recognized as Safe' list and you could drink liters of them without any ill effects.
"Among all, the most interesting aspects we observed was that nicotine was not detected in air during the e-smoking session, although liquids used for experiments contained it. On the other hand, 34µg/m^3 of nicotine were found during the smoking session."
I remember another study I'm having trouble finding that was able to detect some nicotine in the exhaled vapor using a different method (capturing exhaled vapor in a glass chamber), but at an extremely low concentration. Nothing I've found leads me to believe secondhand nicotine exposure from e-cigarettes is a significant hazard.
E-cigs were banned from public indoor use at the same time as smoking in my area. They used the reasoning that, for some of the e-cigs, it was hard to distinguish them from actual cigarettes as they look similar, and would cause confusion.
The vast majority of the public indoor e-cig smokers I've run into seemed to be doing it so they could look like they're smoking and then get indignant that it's not a cigarette
If you are going to vocalize an opinion, you should expect to have it questioned. Just saying "well that is my opinion" does not put it off limits. Far from it..
As far as I'm concerned, that justification should fail on first amendment grounds, since it would banning them based on the message they (allegedly) communicate.
Electronic cigarettes should be left the hell alone. I've never seen a more successful smoking cessation tool. Trying to heavy-handedly 'regulate' them so they aren't as easy or affordable to use will only ensure that people keep smoking regular cigarettes. Of course, the more paranoid side of my brain reminds me that a lot of tax revenue comes from old fashioned cigarette sales, and perhaps governments will want to protect those revenues.