E-Cigarettes: How do we fit them in?

So I'm a recent convert to e-cigs and I saw this article.

Now as most of you know, I used to be a user of tobacco products and a vociferous defender of the right to indulge. Recently I switched to an electronic cigarette as a way to get the fix I enjoy...partially for cost reasons - cigs are fucking expensive these days - but also so that people who aren't wanting to board the Nicotine Train didn't have to suffer the consequences of my behavior.

However, I've found that people view "vaping" in the same context as smoking. I did my homework on what comes out of an e-cig and found that no, puffing on an e-cig is most definitely not the same thing as smoking a cigarette.

So why all the hate?

I mean, most of the anti-smoking crowd's rhetoric can be summed up as "It's bad for me when you do that, so stop it"...so if I can find a way to do what I want in a way that's not bad for other people, why are they anti-smokers still bashing e-cigs?

I've done some research and there is no evidence to suggest that the water vapor (yes, that's all it is) that's released from an e-cig is damaging at all to bystanders.

Posit; is there a reason why e-cig users should be held to the same standards that tobacco users once were? Should e-cig use be regulated at all?

edited 6th Mar '14 8:34:26 PM by drunkscriblerian

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

I am deathly allergic to cigarette smoke, and I have seen e-cigs help so many people ween down on cigarettes by switching to e-cigs. I honestly don't give a shit if people vape around me because it means they aren't smoking around me. It's water vapor. Why should I care?

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Likely because e-cigs cut in on both the pro-smoking tobacco industry, and the anti-smoking pharmaceutical lobby. Vaping is the third option nobody predicted, come to ruin the nice and profitable mutual mud-slinging by offering an actual practical solution to smokers either trying to quit, indulge indoors, or seek cheaper alternatives to the overtaxed habit.

I'm mostly a pipe smoker who vapes whenever there's no time for a proper light, or when I want to feel high-tech. It was only days ago I read of the hypothetical dangers of "passive vaping" - which of course can be mitigated by increased taxation - so I really see it as a shameless attempt at money-grabbing, at the expense of a growing industry that actually provides great medical benefits to current smokers, and by extension the general public.

At most, there should be some regulations concerning the quality standards for nicotine fluid, but other than that, vaping is no more harmful to the public than the steam from a hot cup of coffee.

edited 6th Mar '14 11:31:05 PM by indiana404

Hooray for US bullshit politics and corruption.

Oh really when?

Ok. Tuefels small coin purse.

Not a lot is known yet about long term E-cig, vaporizer, or other electronic nicotine intake on health. Compared to smoking it is very poorly understood.

There are still toxins excluding Nicotine in the mixes. Often it comes from the vaporized glycol suspension and other additives. It is not yet understood how much of these toxins may be hazardous to a users health or long term effects. These toxins are inhaled and possibly exhaled as well just like cig smoke. So the exhaled vapor may not be quite as safe as originally believed. But that isn't to say it is as dangerous as regular tobacco smoke.

There is also the issue a large degree of variance in the various e-cig brands, vaporizers, and the loads. For example some of the single load sticks have no control over doses and if you smoke the entire thing you just sucked down about three packs of nicotine. The mixes can have any number of variances as well. This is an area where some regulation and built in intake limiters are needed.

Some users of the E-Cigs are getting water in their lungs believed to be from inhaling the vapor but it needs more study to confirm.

Now the other side of the coin is that there are something like 1000 times fewer toxins in the ecigs/vaporizers and so far lower toxin concentrations in toxins that are present.

There is some tentative proof that they are just as effective as the patch at quitting smoking and help by adhering to the hand and oral habits associated with smoking.

Some of the vaporizers while more expensive allow custom or tailored loads to suit the users needs and they have the bonus of looking like a sci-fi pipe rather then a cigarette.These devices make it easy to control dosing for use in quitting or if someone just wants a little nicotine vs a lot or wants to smoke something a little different.

They generally lack the foul odor, tar, residue, and mess of cigarettes and seem cleaner overall by comparison.

Now the taxes are pretty self explanatory. Greed pure and simple. Coupled with the typical government knee jerk reaction to any enjoyable substance to try and stamp out or strangle it.

The attitude of people is ignorant moral panic-moral guardian bullshit. They already trotted out think of the children because of flavours. Yes because adults don't like flavors other then ass and ash. Also the typical bullshit of America's hold over from Puritanical thinking still shows up on both sides of the political aisle one way or another so if you enjoy doing something someone will be against it for petty reasons.

Others have the absurd notion it is still smoking never mind the major physical, mechanical, and chemical differences involved. Basically people being bossy nosy assholes as per usual.

There needs to be some regulation, some taxes are fine but if the E-cigs turn out to be a truly healthier alternative I think they should be taxed lower then tobacco.

We definitely need some studies aimed at the product so we know how dangerous it can be and how to mitigate it.

This is still a personal indulgence and a personal habit. Good manners would dictate that unless you are in your own space you should try and respect that others may not want to share the space with said habit. Obnoxious yes but that is sometimes the price for the public space. For now there is some good cause to ban public smoking until more is understood about the by product of use ie the exhaled materials and any that may waft out of the device in use.

edited 6th Mar '14 11:54:59 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

If e-cigs aren't harmful to other people, that's fine. If they can lead to cigs that don't have health risks, that's even better. Plus, much less waste to dispose. Everyone wins. Except for traditional cig makers, but, eh, fuck 'em.

Problem is, we need more research on them, simple as that.

edited 7th Mar '14 12:08:18 AM by Cronosonic

I'm actually waiting for the Navy to come out with regulations on when and where you can use an e-cig, just like we have (extremely stringent) regulations for regular cigarettes. Right now, they're not covered at all, so people (like my chief) can sit at their desk and puff away all day without anyone being able to stop him. Which is really annoying TBH.

E-cigs appear to be by far cleaner, safer, and healthier for everyone involved. I don't think they need to be taxed the way cigarettes are, but they do need some regulation and taxation^* I mean, we tax literally everything else, so why wouldn't we tax them? like any other over-the-counter pharmeceutical product.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

One thing is they still have nicotine so there's allot of people smoking them not realizing they still could damage their health. They certainly smell like something more Than water vapor.

It's better than actual cigarettes though. It's an improvement. Cigs set a pretty low bar but still

I'm baaaaaaack

Well you can get them without nicotine and in these cute flavors.

I know none of mine have nicotine in them.

Oh really when?

A friend of mine uses them with a specific flavor. I'm not sure what the flavor is, but I do know I'm allergic to something in it.

Bear in mind, I'm also allergic to allergy medicine and cough syrup, so make of that what you will.

Not Three Laws compliant.

I hope it's not Pina Colada flavor, those are the bestest

Oh really when?

It's a difficult one, really. I'm very anti-smoking. Personal freedom, sure, but it's too easy to directly affect others. Banning smoking in pubs and restaurants was a logical extension of bans in cinemas and on planes. I wasn't around really for the time when the latter was allowed (being born in 86) and I wouldn't have liked to be around it. I said at the time that the former ban was coming that soon people would forget about it, and was proven right. Hell, a whole social community arose because of people all congregating outside to smoke together. I've participated in this (when I've been able to position myself away from the smoke, or I've just endured).

E-cigs are obviously theoretically a way to have the positives but not the negatives. But there is a knowledge gap. Research is needed on the long term effects, and no one is denying that Ecigs do have harmful things in them. But they're still better for you - and, presumably, those around you - than normal cigarettes. And I reckon the massive industry around cigarettes will want to do everything it can to save itself. The industry is dying; smoking is not socially acceptable in the same way that it once was. But something so huge will hang on for quite a while, and the industry is in no rush to its own grave.

So they'll fight it. They'll use hypocritical health arguments to try and persuade people that Ecigs are no or little better than their own products. They'll try to martyr themselves on the altar of personal freedom.

They will have some valid points, though the rhetoric may drown them out. And the same is true of the other side. Moral Guardians will refuse to accept it even if it is proven that "Passive Ecig smoking" simply isn't a meaningful thing. And if it is proven, then we really must accept that the personal freedom argument becomes much stronger. Much of the problem with the argument for normal cigs is the impact on those around you. The argument collapses if you really are only hurtng yourself.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

The commentary thus far has been interesting. Thanks for your perspectives, all of them.

As to the "well, we just don't know" comments...that's true, we don't. Electronic cigarettes are in their infancy; trust me, as someone who buys them the technology is creaky as hell and finding reliable information is a tricky beast. Early research into the effects of nicotine by itself are upending a good many commonly-held beliefs about it, but y'all are right about the delivery system still being a somewhat unknown quantity.

However, one of the things I've noticed; people have this habit of defaulting to "well, it looks like smoke therefore it must be smoke, and I'm going to react as if it were smoke", designing their responses accordingly.

My take; the anti-smoking crowd is used to having the scientific upper hand in this discussion, and they are having a hard time leaving that behind in the wake of a changing situation. The reality is nobody has that upper hand anymore; e-cigs are an emerging technology nobody saw coming and science is still playing catch-up ball. The early signs fall in favor of the e-cig, but long-term side effects are still relatively unknown at this stage...mostly because we haven't gotten to the long-term yet.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

I think the precautionary principle applies here. Until we know that e-cig's are harmless to people in the environment, they should be under the same restrictions as cigarettes. Why should I risk sacrificing my health on the altar of smokers' lack of self-control?

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

From the article you linked;

That's understandable...it's basically "if we don't know all the consequences, we shouldn't do it".

But I have to point out that there isn't a "suspected risk" factor at play here really; people's fears about the technology are rooted in some version of "this is just another version of smoking" because e-cig use superficially resembles smoking tobacco. That's not exactly scientific, given that the suspicion is rooted in irrational fear, not known fact (e.g. "it looks like smoke and that person usually does make smoke when they indulge in their habit...there must be a connection"). If we let our decisions get guided by our fears, your doctor would still be using leeches.

Again I say; science is rapidly figuring out that nicotine is not the demon chemical we thought it was, so it stands to reason that secondhand exposure to it might not be a terrible thing - if there even is any secondhand exposure from e-cigs, another question science cannot yet answer.

Also; if the American government wanted to actually study the e-cig, I'd be all sorts of down for that. But as far as I see that's not the response; instead, they want to treat it as just another form of tobacco use and tax it accordingly.

finally, may I point out the following; the logic you linked could be used to justify making anything illegal or unavailable. After all, it can be argued that we don't know all the consequences regarding anything in modern society.

edited 8th Mar '14 2:54:19 AM by drunkscriblerian

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

While e-cigs themselves are new technology, the fluid that they use has been around for quite a while. It's basically the same stuff, used in the same way, as performers and theatre companies have used for decades in smoke machines — glycerin and/or glycol.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Yeah, if there were long term side effects of the non nicotine part we'd have seen them on theaters years ago.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Yep. That's not to say that glycol fog has absolutely no ill-effects — singers have known for years that in fog-heavy productions that their throats can take a real beating, and knowledgeable directors and tech crews take that into account, using as little fog as necessary. But theatre fog uses gallons of juice, and may fill the whole performing area with it, not millilitres mixed heavily with normal air. And what an e-cig user breathes out (the only thing that affects anyone else) is mostly water.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Yep, so while we don't know the long term effects of ecigs we do know the long term effects of thousands of times the dose, and it seems to be sore throat if you sing in a room full of it for hours.

Fuck, I bet a lot of those bars and clubs that banned it have fog machines.

edited 8th Mar '14 5:43:51 AM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Indeed.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Drunk - your point is backed up by the fact that in this, the anti-smokers may actually be supported by the Tobacco industry, who will want to kill off this potential threat to them. They have little to lose because people will always demonise them anyway, but they have everything to gain from having Ecigs tarred with the same brush.

I am an anti-smoker, but only insofar as it has negative effects for other people; if Ecigs don't have passive smoking risks, then I really can't see the problem, and even if they do, it seems to be far, far less than those of ordinary cigarettes.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

Not being tobacco, an e-cig shouldn't get a tobacco tax just by simple logic. While it is valid that we don't know everything they do, we know that, so far, they're looking infinitely better than cigarettes.

Personally, I can't stand cigarettes, but I love cigars and shisha; e-cigs have joined that pantheon, with their variety of delicious flavours and ability to supply nicotine to my brain without making my lungs feel like death.

Anecdotal though my evidence may be, I'm a firm believer in nicotine itself as a potentially positive recreational drug. I don't smoke often enough to have an addiction, or even a habit; I smoke strictly for fun, or as a pick-me-up. I find that a good bowl of shisha makes me feel relaxed, more positive, more creative, and much more sociable. So far it seems to me that addiction to pure nicotine in smallish doses isn't much worse than caffeine addiction- and look at how many people have that. (-Raises hand-)

It is kinda necessary to have an adjustable limiter, though, so people don't end up getting a lot more than they want.

A final random note: I think we should call these things something different than "e-cigs." How can we expect people to think of them differently from cigarettes if we're literally calling them [adjective] cigarettes?

Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-

@Exe: As I said, the evidence for nicotine being positive is no longer anecdotal; now that scientists have a reason to study the chemical by itself (instead of the massive, noxious chemical cocktail that is tobacco smoke) they are making all sorts of discoveries.

Chief among them; it treats Parkinson's disease better than current medication, and it may make a more effective concentration aid than Adderall for people with ADHD.

@Maddie: thanks for the comparison to smoke machines. I'll use that the next time someone starts beefing at me. :D

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

Comparing E-Cigs to fog machines is not quite accurate. While the base tech is similar the overall product and individual technologies is not the same. We cannot assume anything simply because the tech is related or similar. We have to take the two items on their own individual merits rather then their common ones because they have notable enough divergence from each other.

There are at least two key differences between the fog machines and E-cigs that we need to consider.

First is the additional additives that get put into the mix that generate the vapor. This one is pretty obvious. The fog machines don't have nicotine, certain dyes, flavours, perfumes, and other chemical agents for palatability and mimicry of cigarettes. While it is possible to include some additives in a fog machine mix, last I checked it typically isn't done because it is cheaper to just use the base mix.

Second is use of the devices. There is no arguing that the two devices are used differently and their designs reflect how they are intended to be used. When people inhale the fog from the machines they are typically doing so simply because of saturation of the fog in the air. Fog Machines are used for a specific visual effect and not as means to deliver something like nicotine to the system. They vaporize the material and it gets blown out of the machine in a cloud.

E-Cigs on the other hand are specifically designed to deliver an inhaled chemical into the body. Most of them have a vaporizer with various activation methods but the vapor typically only moves when the device is drawn on to inhale the vapor. Some vapor may leak out but it should only be a tiny amount. Users also tend to blow out the vapor into the environment around them so it is not strictly contained.

Personally I think there will be some health draw backs related to how the vapor mix is prepared and what is in it along with habitual use, but I think ultimately in the long run E-cigs will be significantly better compared to traditional tobacco smoking methods.

The vapor mix problems can likely be overcome by controlling what goes into the mix and even what the mix is made of.

Something to remember about nicotine is that it is a toxin. Smoking gives you a rather very small dose. You have indicators of how much you have been smoking because you have to physically consume an object in a very visible fashion. The problem comes when some of these still unregulated devices, the one shot ones, can contain enough nicotine for three packs of cigarettes. There is no indicator telling you how much you have smoked or a limiter keeping you from sucking down a 3 pack of smokes in a sitting. If someone sucks down two of those in a day you may have a problem. There is a real risk for accidental poisoning with some devices. But that is something that can be dealt with by requiring some sort of dosing control or use total tracker or even simply only allowing lower dose one shots.

Who watches the watchmen?

Good point. And a big part of the reason that the nomenclature is shifting toward calling it "vaping". Another part is that they aren't just for cigarette smokers anymore; several of the major shisha makers are now making shisha juice in myriads of flavors and nicotine strengths.

Teuf: Two points: you're ignoring that nicotine is being examined more closely on its own now, and, as Drunkie has pointed out, it's looking lke it's not the huge bugbear that it previously was believed to be: it looks like most of the damage smoking causes is a result of the tars and other particulate matter in the smoke, not the nicotine itself.

The other thing is that yes, e-cig juice is, for the most part, the same stuff as fog machine juice, and the technology looks different but is simply miniaturized — you have the juice reservoir, a wick or injector to deliver it to the heating chamber, and a heating element that vaporizes it. It's no different.

Most flavors used are alcohol- or water- based extracts and are used in baking and candy-making, and are mixed into the glycol in tiny amounts — rarely do the total flavors make up more than about 20% of the volume of the juice and that's for the strong or very complex flavors where you're adding three or four different flavors to achieve the final taste.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.