Minnesota – the state where everything that isn’t mandatory is banned – jumped down hard on “vaping”, the “smoking” of electronic cigarettes (or “e-cigs”). E-cigs, which create a vapor out of water with flavoring and nicotene, are a vastly lower-risk alternative to smoking cigarettes, without the tar and most of the known carcinogens.
Summary: people enjoying something that looked like, and bore a superficial relationship (there’s something that looks like smoke!) to something the ruling class abhors (but for the tax money) but the declassé enjoy? Ban it!
And so the state’s behavior police, sensing illicit enjoyment, leapt into action, grunting out a series of laws that, while scientifically vacant, made vaping the equivalent of smoking.
But with a little luck, the push for conformity may have taken a hit in, of all places, New York, with a judge noting the radical notion that, with vaping, nothing is burning:
“An electronic cigarette neither burns nor contains tobacco,” said the court. “Instead, the use of such a device, which is commonly referred to as ‘vaping,’ involves the inhalation of vaporized e-cigarette liquid consisting of water, nicotine, a base of propylene glycol or vegetable glycerin and occasionally, flavoring.”
And also, the subversive idea (at least in the age of Obama( that the law means what it says it means:
The issue was brought to the court in the case of People v. Thomas, after vaper Shawn Thomas was issued a citation on the subway and subsequently challenged the citation in court. New York law defines smoking as “the burning of a lighted, cigarette, pipe or any other matter or substance which contains tobacco.”
Let’s hope this sparks (heh) a continued legal rebellion.
Three summers ago I was driving downtown during the Gay Pride carnival. On the corner were two young men in their underpants with an obscene message on their backsides and walking down the street groping one another.
II would rather have my grandchild see a man vaping, than a man groping. Get my drift?
People’s argument? Smoke on the water.
People v. Thomas, Thomas will likely lose, because Nicotine is a component/derivative of tobacco, not a product in vaping of any other source and therefore quite likely to be covered under the NY law. I believe that the laws involved don’t specify if the substance involved is some form of partial tobacco or a tobacco derivative, just that it be a tobacco substance – which it is.
from a Bloomberg news piece:
“The FDA has indicated it will begin to regulate e-cigarettes this fall. After a federal judge ruled that it couldn’t classify them as medical devices (because they deliver a drug, nicotine), the FDA will regulate them as tobacco products (because nicotine is derived from tobacco).
…To begin, e-cigarette makers should be required to report and label all ingredients in the nicotine solutions they use. Even though these deliver fewer poisons than are found in traditional cigarettes, they nevertheless have been found to contain carcinogenic nitrosamines and other harmful impurities derived from the tobacco, as well as the additive diethylene glycol, an ingredient in antifreeze.”
As to your assertion about health, mmmmmmmmmm no, there are still some significant problems with it that arguably don’t put it in the category of safe fun:
And according to the NIH, there are some significant dangers to e-cigarettes, including dangers to bystanders (although less than second hand cigarette smoke) and of course the problems with the flavors being marketed / intended to appeal (whether they admit it or not) to people below the legal age to use these products.
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-A244/
At this point physicians are most concerned about acute nicotine toxicity, symptoms of which can include agitation, rapid heartbeat, seizures, nausea, and vomiting.30 The authors of a case report of nicotine poisoning in an infant call on doctors to educate patients about the hazard posed to children by nicotine solution. They point out that nicotine solution at a strength used in some refill cartridges can be lethal if ingested (the case they reported was nonfatal).30
E-cigarettes may also expose bystanders to emissions, although research in this area is only just beginning. One team of researchers observed increased indoor air levels—albeit less than those associated with tobacco cigarettes—of coarse particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and aluminum following indoor vaping sessions lasting two hours each.31
“E-cigarettes do appear to pollute the air, though not as much as conventional cigarettes,” Glantz says. “Many of the effects of secondhand smoke on the cardiovascular system have highly nonlinear dose–response curves,” he says, so even lower levels of e-cigarette emissions should be taken seriously. He adds, “We now have much cleaner indoor air [as a result of widespread bans on public smoking], so I can’t see why you would want to re-introduce polluted air with e-cigarettes.”
I am disappointed dear Mitch that you would push so hard for what you view as liberty when it is really unhealthy conduct that has a negative impact on the users and those around them, and fail to include the legitimate negative facts that are the basis for reasonable restrictions.
Seems to me that is propaganda pushing bad decisions without the necessary responsibility for how good and reasonable restrictive decisions are made — tsk tsk.
Hope at least you are getting some bike riding in during our warmer spells, courtesy of anthropogenic global warming; great for those lungs of yours to offset the enjoyment of the occasional cigar you seem to like so much.
10 paragraphs of barking at the mail man, yet DG can’t find time to write two sentences answering Mitch’s questions about what Heather Martens has actually accomplished (or even one sentence, if there is even that much).
E-cigarettes MAY also expose bystanders to emissions, although research in this area is ONLY just beginning. ONE team of researchers observed increased indoor air levels—ALBEIT less than those associated with tobacco cigarettes—of coarse particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and aluminum following indoor vaping sessions lasting TWO HOURS each. emphasys mine.
According to DogScientificallyChallengedPile, if wishes were horses she would have a brain. But she does not. This anti-vaping science (at least so far) surely sounds a lot like AGW hysteria. According to her thinking, if one could call it that, based on “research” she juts sited she is advocating bans on all camp fires, woodburning firestoves, wood pellet electricity generation and grills, charcoals of all shapes and sizes including for grilling. Heck, DogPile is advocating ban on fire! Of course, it is libturd environazi goal to force us all back into stone age.
If dg gave two shits about glerbal werming, she’d cut her carbon footprint to zero, if you catch my drift.
DG, would it kill you to admit that the reason we regulate tobacco is not because of the nicotine, but rather because of the thousands of other toxic chemicals that are released when tobacco is chewed or burned? By your logic, we ought to regulate anything with caffeine in it the same way, since its effects are similar to those of nicotine.
I had thought that the “long-haired, dope smoking, maggot infested FM types” on the left would get it that there’s a difference between serious drugs and things like vaping, but I guess I was wrong.
DG- ”..during our warmer spells, courtesy of anthropogenic global warming..” Sorry, DG, but this warm spell is courtesy of an El Nino, a completely natural event that’s been occurring long before your SUV ruined the planet.
jmf, there is nothing natural in Doggie’s world. Especially thought process.