While many may emit water vapour, I believe there's studies which show that there are non-negligible amounts of other substances in some e-cigarette vapours. I do not think there's enough scientific data to make a long-term decision; perhaps just regulating the manufacturers so that we know what's putting what into the air is enough?
My personal opinion is that no matter the safety, I cannot cope with the smell of e-cigarettes, having been around people who use them indoors, and would like to have at least some recourse for being forced to smell it all day in my workplace. If vapers manage to convince companies that it is their "right" to vape in the workplace, I will not be able to work. I would thus like some regulation around using e-cigarettes in places where I have little choice to be.
I don't think that either smell nor "non-water compounds" are reasons to regulate e-cigarettes tighter than we regulate perfumes, colognes, or spray deodorants.
Similar regulation for all four seems reasonable to me.
Those things don't tend to protrude more than a few inches, maximum, from a person's body, and there's an established culture whereby people will be reprimanded if they do.
Quite a few perfumes give me a migraine with even fairly limited exposure. By the time I notice the smell enough to run away, it's usually too late. If someone is wearing axe body spray I have to immediately leave the room.
This is the reason I stopped going to malls. The olfactory assault emanating from some of those stores is quite unpleasant and will give me migraines. Applies to the weekend bar scene, too, but I was never wont to hang around drunk people anyway.
I think it's reasonable to ask vapers around you to take it elsewhere if it bothers you. Similarly, if someone is wearing a very strong perfume that bothers you, take it up with them. As a vaper, I'll generally ask first before vaping in a closed area, but if I don't, I'm totally okay with someone asking me to take it elsewhere. If you run into large groups of people who don't, those people are just dicks. That doesn't mean we should start legislating away everything that's irritating to some group of people.
It seems to me that the argument for legislation seems to come from the idea that smoking is bad, smokers are bad people, so anything that looks like smoking is also bad.
Aye, it probably does come from that. I'll wait to see what becomes of "vaper culture" before making an opinion, but before then, I'm honestly not going to get involved either way on this process.
Okay, fair enough. Have you tried asking the vapers if they would mind not smoking them indoors? I know I've stopped doing so in confined conference rooms after a coworker commented that they didn't like the smell.
I appreciate it sucks that vaping is just one more thing which intrudes on your personal space and freedoms, but so do so many things at the office, from people chatting, to coughing, to cracking their knuckles or delighting you with the irritating buzz of their headphones. I'm not really sure that e-cigarettes warrant regulation any more than any of the other annoyances that are encountered throughout the day.
EDIT: Also, for anyone interested in learning more about the science of e-cigarette safety, Dr. Siegel of the Boston University School of Public Health pretty vociferously supports e-cigarettes and writes a blog on the science and politics of the matter:
> Have you tried asking the vapers if they would mind not smoking them indoors?
Yes. Unfortunately, some people do not seem to care about others, especially when they see what they're doing as "harmless". There seems to be a certain militancy among some vapers that doesn't exist around most other things.
Wow, arseholes. It's hard to recommend any course of action really, because I can't think of any coworkers I've ever had who'd refuse a reasonable request like that. I guess I'd offer to buy them some flavoured nicotine gum and ask them to try that for a while?
The apathy is not a cigarette/e-cig problem, sounds more like a personality trait. A little mindfulness would do our culture good(real practice, not the Time magazine version).
I posit the militancy is a possible result of persecution.
My personal opinion is that no matter the safety, I cannot cope with the smell of e-cigarettes, having been around people who use them indoors, and would like to have at least some recourse for being forced to smell it all day in my workplace. If vapers manage to convince companies that it is their "right" to vape in the workplace, I will not be able to work. I would thus like some regulation around using e-cigarettes in places where I have little choice to be.