But I've never quite understood the hostility to e-cigarattes. Yeah, nicotine is addictive … but, so what? Yeah, it seems like normal fire-involving tobacco smoking … but, again, so what?
I'm just not seeing the harm, esp. compared to the legal restrictions that various municipalities seem to want to put onto the devices.
I have no desire to puff on an e-cigarette. But that doesn't mean I'm automatically in favor of treating them the same as real cigarettes.
The Government’s War on E-Cigarettes
It’s here, folks. The battle royale between the regulators and the people over e-cigarettes is upon us. It started a few years ago, calmly, but with New York City banning vaping in public places, the knives are about to come out.
Think of it this way : the tobacco industry sells billions of dollars a year of poison (and nicotin isn't the poison here, what's truly poisonous is mostly tar and CO), and in turn, the pharmatical industry rakes in billions of dollars worth of ineffective "cures" such as nitotin gums. Now, how are they happy to see a product cutting in both those revenues, and how much are they willing to pay to kick any new player out of this very lucrative field?
I have a friend who smokes e-cigs and, honestly, since he started it's a lot more pleasant to visit with him as I don't go home smelling of cigarette smoke later. I don't if they're any more healthy than normal cigarettes, but if someone is going to smoke anyway then e-cigs seem like a good alternative to traditional tobacco products.
Margie the Wife (on Dave’s machine)
One of the concerns is that the increased visibility of “cigarettes” will increase the overall smoking rate. Especially if they are allowed in locations that traditional cigarettes are not. The FDAs concern is about nicotine poisoning which can kill you and a vell deserved distrust of the tobacco companies.
Interesting facts – Most e-cigarette smokers also smoke traditional cigarettes and most e-cigarettes are made by tobacco companies.
Discussed this with Margie the other evening. There are concerns over "smoking" becoming more visible and more accepted, and thus spilling over into flame cigarette vs e-cigarette. It's also not clear whether nicotine and e-smoking isn't harmful. Those arguments weren't convincing to me enough to ban or highly regulate something that, so far as we know, is safe.
That said, her best argument was that e-cigarettes are being pushed by Big Tobacco, who are utterly untrustworthy as to safety, and are probably spending their profits coming up with new ways to torture kittens.