Over there on the right is a classic example of garbled science: the claim that vegetables can be grown ‘without chemicals,’ as if the vegetables themselves weren’t little lumps of chemicals already.
But I have another one to add to the list of bad ideas, and this one comes from a press release from the American Thoracic Society.
Electronic cigarette flavorings alter lung function at the cellular level.
Oh, really? Could we wait until we discover something that affects organs at the acellular level before making it out to be news?
And just to make it worse, Wired repeats the same strange phrasing for this story.
It’s just annoying. Of course these processes are going to have effects “at the cellular level”. We’re made of cells. It’s all cells and molecules all the way through.
The paper itself is clear and specific, so this is just an oddity of the press release. The paper’s title is “Select E-Cigarette Flavors Alter Calcium Signaling, Cell Viability and Proliferation in Lung Epithelia” — when the experiment is to expose cells in culture to doses of the chemicals found in e-cigarettes, it’s pretty much a given that you’re going to be assessing cellular effects. And it is totally unsurprising that those chemicals would affect calcium signaling (it’s been my experience that just about everything modifies calcium signaling), or that some of them would have deleterious effects on survival or proliferation.
I’m kind of disgusted, actually, that this vaping crap is so popular — you’ve given up bathing your respiratory epithelia in the fumes from burning plants, for bathing the same epithelia in miscellaneous solvents and dissolved chemicals, and you’re surprised that at least some of them are unhealthy for you?
In fact, the one surprise to me in this paper is that they tested 13 different flavorings used in e-cigarettes, and 10 of them had no measurable effect on cells in culture. Unflavored vapors, with just nicotine and the carrier solution, had no effect either. That’s just weird — bronchial and alveolar epithelial cells express nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, so this would be saying that hitting those receptors with their ligand does nothing at all to the cells. I’m dubious.
As for the ones that did have a detectable effect…if you’re inhaling something called “Banana Pudding (Southern Style)”, you’ve got concerns.
Well, I inhale my banana pudding (southern style) the old fashioned way, and I feel totally untroubled and carefree, at the cellular level.
At least they didn’t say it was at the “quantum level.”
Oh my god! I read the report and it seems that these chemicals can alter functions on a biological level!
Bio, as in life, logical as in… brain? These chemicals can kill your brain! Oh the humanity.
Do remember that one is always breathing solvent and dissolved chemicals as air is a solvent and contains lots of dissolved chemicals. There’s no escaping that (save the vacuum of space where breathing is less of an option). However, this does not mean that vaping is a good activity by any means because its solvents and chemicals are a poor substitute for the regular stuff.
Yes, I tried the banana pudding (southern style), but I did not inhale!
With actual bananas and pudding?
The thing that really annoys me is the number of people who use vaping as a way to get around smoking bans. I don’t care that you’re not technically smoking, you’re still exhausting a big cloud of vapor that’s full of Cthulhu knows what near me.
“Could we wait until we discover something that affects organs at the acellular level before making it out to be news?”
Isn’t “operates at the cellular level” just a laymans term for inter/intra-cellular mechanisms? Like, a baseball bat to the shoulder is gonna damage some cells, but the mechanism has nothing to with the the cells interacting with one another, and it has nothing to do with anything going on inside the cell. Contrast with certain chemicals altering cell signalling behaviour, where the mechanism deals specifically with cellular signalling.
I suppose you could try to say that if it effects the extracellular matrix, then it’s not at the cellular level. If you ignore that the cells create the ECM and receive signals from it.
Really, they grow them without ANY chemicals? How do you grow a plant without dihydrogen monoxide?
@NYC atheist
They use a homeopathic preparation instead.
@ microraptor:
As a smoker myself (yes yes, I know), I’m simply amazed at people who go to non-smoking venues and vape up. In that I’m amazed the people next to them don’t simply physically assault them.
It’s beyond rude.
@PatrickG- believe me, it’s tempting. What I really don’t get is the private establishments that have banned smoking but throw their hands up at vaping- you complain and they act like there’s nothing they can do. Um, hello, it’s private property, you actually do have the authority to tell them to knock it off or GTFO.
@ microraptor:
Word!
Most egregious example I saw recently was at the Oakland Coliseum, at a Fleetwood Mac concert*. Guy just throwing up plumes of vapor so thick you couldn’t clearly see the stage. At a venue which has a total ban of smoking. And let’s not talk about the weed….
Cigarettes are bad, no argument there, but the selective enforcement is rather eyebrow-raising.
* Fun story: got into a mini-fight (verbal) with someone who actually was protesting the concert on the basis that Stevie Nicks was a witch. Seriously, told me to my face that she was casting a spell with her songs, and that I should leave to save my soul. If it weren’t for the “gays burn in hell” signs his followers were holding, I’d have thought it was performance art. Of course, he wasn’t smoking, so he was allowed to be there. :)
Sounds like he was just fuming.
Don’t make me vaporize you!
Well, if American Thoracic Society press releases work anything like university press releases, this is how it will have gone down:
A PR person speaks to whoever is in charge of the work and is palmed off onto a student or Research Associate. The student spends an hour carefully explaining the work and follows up by sending links to papers and to other people the PR person might want to speak to. The PR person writes something that does not resemble the work in any way and is in fact completely misleading. The student makes corrections and suggestions, explaining why the account is misleading and what it actually needs to say instead. The PR person changes a couple of words, leaving the misleading parts otherwise completely intact and sends it back. The student writes the entire press release for the PR person, with a long explanation of why it has to be written this way to avoid completely misrepresenting the work. At most, the PR person grudgingly inserts one of the student’s sentences, one which does not alter the incorrect description of the work.
This goes on until PR just issue the release without approval.
I’ve had to do this several times. You can tell, can’t you?
I think it is good that there is some research being done into the risks of vaping, and some useful regulation of where people vape might be nice (but it would be far more important to have location-based tobacco smoking regulation applied to weed smoking), but I cannot get behind in generalized anti-vaping sentiment. As far as I can see, the vast majority of vapers would be smoking if vaping was not available. It’s like opposing beer and unintentionally driving people to “denatured” alcohols.
As far as I can see, the majority of vapers actually do both. I don’t think I know anyone who’s actually given up tobacco completely for vaping. Might just be the people I know though…
What I’ve long been wondering is: what sort of regulation applied to the manufacture of these solutions? Is there actually any mechanism in place to ensure that they’re not contaminated with hazardous substances?
LykeX just won the internet.
Another bit of scientifically nonsensical fiction i heard yesterday. Male pattern baldness has hit me hard lately so i’ve been shaving my head for a while. My mother, very concerned, told me that i must remember to use solar protection. I told her “of course, but if i’m just going to buy bread and back home, it’s not necessary”. She insisted that it was very important that i did and when i asked her why she thinks it’s important to put on protection for a quick nip down the street she said “the doctor’s are insisting on how important it is to prevent damage, you pay for it when you are older otherwise” and then, gloriously….”you store sunlight, see?” xDD
I have told people before Nicotine is an insecticide and use to be readily available in a product called black leaf 40 works great but it is rather dangerous and smells rather of but cans (wet ashtrays)
I just heard a report the other day about vaping and I seem to remember that there was no or very little regulation on the who, how or what of mixing those vapeing liquids
and people have died from doing it!
I never heard of anyone smoking a really strong cigar dieing puking however……
uncle frogy
@ azhael
Ah yes, of course. Well, the first organisms were plants, you see, so we still have the genes necessary for photosynthesis, so under strong sunlight with no sun cream on you store the solar energy as bad chemical energy. As we all know from various fad diets, there is “good” chemical energy and “bad” chemical energy, and the bad chemical energy affects you on the cellular level, and that’s bad.
Troo fax.
@ Unclefrogy
I still remember being lavishly praised by our guide when I went to the Amazon. All the guides smoked like chimneys. He saw me light up and was like:
Guide: Ah! Tu fumas! You smoke! Good, [taps head] you are very smart, eh?
Me: [laughing] I think that’s the first time I’ve been called smart for smoking!
Guide: Ah! [waves hand dismissively] It keeps the flies away! That’s good! Here, malaria is more dangerous than cancer, eh?
When I eventually got home a month or so later, I did some Googling and found out it was an insecticide. Then it all made sense.
I once got up in a bar where I was with friends and asked the counter if I was allowed to vape or not. They looked at me blankly and said: “I don’t know, you’re the first person to ask. People usually do vape though”.
I decided to go outside.
THIS! Vaping should be banned in the same places as smoking for just this reason.
One might interpret “at the cellular level” as an albeit clumsy attempt to distinguish between an experiment performed on cells grown in culture from an experiment performed on lungs in vivo.
My favourite use of the phrase “at the cellular level”: “I may look like I’m not doing anything, but at the cellular level, I’m actually quite busy.”
I worked in the lab at a lenscrafters for a stint when I first moved to the US. We had one customer ask a salesperson, rather snootily, if the transition lenses (the ones that go dark in sunlight) operated at the molecular level (hah, you’re an entry level sales person with very limited technical knowledge in a single field, see how I can baffle you with scientication!).
Sadly the lab manager rejected my request to yell at him incoherently for 5 minutes.
I know people who have.
It’s a great idea for people who have trouble quitting smoking any other way. I’m less thrilled with the idea that people start smoking by using e-cigs because these are seen as less harmful, but as I’m sitting here with my diet Coke, getting ready to go eat a potluck lunch that involves lots of fats and sugars and sodium and listening to my colleagues talk about various wines and liquors, I really don’t see how there’s any “but that’s not good for you so it should be banned” ground to stand on here.
I quit tobacco entirely in one day and took up vaping; that was back in 2010. I didn’t do it because I wanted to quit smoking; I did it for the neatness and cost — no smelly ashtrays, no butts, no holes in clothes, no possible fires, no smelly smoke. And the cost is about half of regular cigarettes (at least until the gov gets its way and taxes us to death). I don’t do anything but a nicotine flavor, no watermelon or bubblegum, and I get the vegetable carrier. I feel better, all my belongings smell better. That said, I do try to be polite about it.
However, I was enraged when smoking bans went into effect in my city in all “public” places, which meant my small business. I think we should have a choice. Put a sign on the door “Smoking Permitted” or “No Smoking” and let customers choose whether to come in.
And if we’re going to banish noxious vapors, let’s not leave out perfume and cologne (and Axe) and hairspray and shampoo and bodywash and all internal combustion engines and so on ad nauseaum.
@Jacob Schmidt – The problem is, if you did research, you could then say that getting hit with the baseball bat causes damage AT THE CELLULAR LEVEL!!1!
When you’re dealing with chemicals interacting with an organism, where we already know there’s an effect (otherwise the drug wouldn’t work), it will cause change at the cellular level by default.
That’s also why nobody says that a blunt-weapon injury caused damage at the cellular level, because that’s already assumed.
Supremely disappointing, PZ and commenters. You know why I vape? Because it got me the fuck off tobacco. This is harm reduction par excellence. PZ, get your head out of your ass. You’re not ignorant, and I know you’re capable of imagining why people would choose to move to a less harmful nicotine delivery system. Or is it just that, with smoking, it’s better to quit or die?
You may remember my heart attack in 2010 at age 36. Some of the commenters here remember it, and many of you said such kind, supportive things.
Guess what? I’ve been off tobacco since then because of e-cigarettes. Glycerine, propylene glycol (NOT ANTIFREEZE! Seriously. Check behind me and look it up), and nicotine. No smoke.
My cardiologist at UVM Medical Center thinks they’re a god-send and said to me, “I don’t care if you’re getting clean nicotine. Just don’t smoke.”
Please everyone, give this more consideration. Please. It’s a literal matter of life and death. It makes no rational sense to treat vaping as on a par with burning tobacco smoke. Are you terrified of smokers who use nicotine gum? Are you fearful that pharmaceutical nicotine inhalers are killing former smokers? No, you’re not. Because you understand that it’s not nicotine that does most of the killing, it’s the burnt tobacco smoke and its thousands of carcinogens.
The moralizing and hysteria over e-cigarettes is moral tragedy that’s going to cost people lives. Most of you are behind things like needle exchanges because you understand that people are people and even they’re addicted it’s an enormous good to help them avoid catastrophic illness and death. But because vaping LOOKS like smoking, the cultural baggage from cigarettes is painting vaping as if it were functionally the same thing.
That’s perverse. No, we “don’t know” that they’re “completely safe.” They probably aren’t. But it doesn’t take 20 years of controlled studies—which isn’t going to happen as medical organizations are working hard to ban and regulate vapes out of existence—to know that NOT smoking burnt particulates and INSTEAD inhaling nicotine and some glycerine or propylene glycol is hugely less harmful.
Why doesn’t this matter to folks? Is it that you haven’t considered it? If so, that’s understandable. But please do. I could scream and tear my hair out watching this—e-cigarettes are the greatest harm reduction to come along for tobacco users ever. Instead of helping to make it more available and safer, we have hysterical panics that are resulting in bans and attempts to so curtail sales and so raise taxes that they’re on a par with cigarettes.
This is crazy, and it’s not hard to see that it’s crazy if you’re willing to simply stop and listen, using the same compassion and good sense you already have and that you already use for other harm reduction methods.
I would very likely be dead now if I hadn’t stopped smoking. And I have *stopped smoking*. I’m on maintenance nicotine, just like your dad/father/mom who chewed nicotine gum for years. Sure, you may have preferred they quit entirely, but I’m betting you’re not railing against the availability of nicotine gum.
This matters. A lot.
To forestall the inevitable:
1. No, e-cigarettes are not a “plot of Big Tobacco.” They were invented by someone totally unconnected to tobacco as a harm reduction measure. I started using them before *any* tobacco companies offered them. Really. Tobacco companies are only co-opting something that existed to get away from their tobacco.
2. Tobacco companies have since bought formerly independent e cig manufacturers. Not all of them. Some of them. They are backing legislation that would make it hard/expensive/impossible for small companies to compete. This is self-serving and it harms users like me.
3. Even if e-cigarettes were a big plot. . it’s a plot that’s hugely less harmful than keeping people hooked on smoking tobacco. Seriously. Think about it.
4. Vaping is not “a way around smoking bans.” Vaping is not smoking. No matter how much it looks like it. No matter how hard your emotional buttons are pushed when you see what *looks* like a cloud of smoke.
5. Again– no one is saying “we know they’re 100 percent safe.” The problem is that that’s a ridiculous standard. This would never, ever be the way a conversation about harm reduction was framed except for the fact that e-cigarettes provoke the same emotional passion as cigarettes. That’s understandable, but it’s not *real*, and the facts matter. You’d never accept this kind of extreme framing if we were talking about the chemically similar caffeine and its delivery systems.
This is extremely hard to discuss because the history of abuse and death from the tobacco companies is real and people are right to be apalled by it. But this elision between vaping and smoking tobacco is dangerous and inaccurate and causes otherwise sensible, good-hearted people to inadvertently work to make vaping less accessible and contribute to the “it looks like smoking so therefore it is smoking and you better ban the fuck out of it just like you did with smoking”.
Josh:
Quoted for Truth.
Josh, I agree with you on most of your points, but I’m not exactly following your argument that since addiction exists, people should by default be allowed to vape in places with smoking bans.
It’s not emotional buttons (at least, not just). It’s a typically strongly scented cloud of vapor that smells of synthetic Posies/Banana Pudding/Dark Side of the Asshole that can be smelled dozens of feet away for a not inconsiderable amount of time. I really don’t think you’re advocating that people be allowed to vape on the subway, on airplanes, in doctor’s offices, in restaurants, and such, are you?
By the way, if you want an emotional argument, being around vapers at an indoor public establishment sent my asthmatic partner into a full-blown attack. So I’ll see your heart attack and raise you a hospital visit. It’s not just a harmless cloud, thanks very much.
Health concerns aside, it’s not dissing the harm reduction model to say that people who vape in crowded public spaces are assholes, and that public health was not the sole driver of many smoking bans — providing a space free of smells and irritants proved to be quite popular. Even for people who smoke, like me.
Now, the unscented e-cigs and the like I have no problem with. They’re discreet, and don’t actually impact the people around them.
@ movablebooklady:
Since smelly things exist, there is no point in regulation of particular smelly things. /facepalm
You must be aware of the growing trend toward things like scent-free workplaces on health grounds, right? Guess we should stop that right now, because cars exist! Which are heavily regulated in terms of emissions, by the way.
On the other hand, I think anybody wearing Axe body spray is likely to be viewed as poorly by those close to them as someone lighting up in a restaurant. That shit is noxious. :)
Hi. I’ve been a daily reader here since the old sci-blog days, so I promise I am not a drive-by troller. The few times I’ve posted comments it’s been under the username leaford, but it’s been ages since I used it so I can’t figure out the password and it was linked to an expired email account, so I signed in via Facebook instead. Just to establish my bona-fides.
Besides a regular reader, an atheist and a skeptic, I am also a vaper. And in fact, I am a vaping professional with 5 years of vapor industry QA experience here in Shenzhen China, where almost all of this stuff is made. So at the risk of being seen as sea-lioning, I kind of felt compelled to respond to this. And maybe I can answer a few of your questions about and objections to vaping.
Well, PZ, I am disgusted that you are disgusted. Sorry man, I love you, but you are just wrong headed here. You are disgusted that millions of smokers have switched to a less harmful alternative? You would prefer they kept smoking and die sooner? Of course not. You, like so many others, are probably just projecting your legitimate disgust for the fatal habit onto the potentially life-saving alternative.
Maybe you are disgusted that they didn’t just quit cold turkey, or didn’t use FDA approved pills, patches, or gum? But the success rate for those is dismal, while the success rate for vaping is phenomenal. Sure they are still consuming nicotine, but that’s not the harmful part. It’s no more harmful in the absence of smoke as a carrier than a regular caffeine habit.
And nicotine is proven to have useful properties, like promoting relaxed awareness, increased alertness and memory, reducing stress, and even helps some neurological conditions. So what exactly do you find so disgusting?
Not really, no. The flavors are seriously the only ingredients whose safety has not been, IMO, adequately investigated. But that’s not being ignored. Both consumer groups and industry groups have long acknowledged the need, and pushed for it. It’s been back benched because up to now almost everyone with research dollars to spend have concentrated on establishing overall safety and effectiveness; from a consumer perspective because that’s what they really need to know, and from an industry standpoint because without that we don’t have ammo to fight back against an FDA and an anti-tobacco lobby that wants to see our industry banned. That’s why I am glad to see this study finally be published, and I am looking forward to follow up studies.
@ andrechemist #4
By the regular stuff, I assume you mean regular air? That’s the wrong comparison. The comparison should be to tobacco smoke, and I assure you that vapor is a much better substitute for that. For example, here’s a link to a blog post that summarizes and links to just 5 out of the dozens of studies so far showing how relatively harmless vaping is, compared to the alternative: http://www.licensetovape.com/are-electronic-cigarettes-harmful/
@ microraptor #6
No offense meant, but that’s just a reflection of your own ignorance, not something that public policy should be based on. If you want to know what’s being exhaled, there are studies to answer that question. Such as this one, sponsored by a consumer group: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23033998
Pertinent results:
So, really, if it poses no significant risk, what is your objection, other than you don’t like it or are annoyed by it?
@ PatrickG #11
Blowing smoke or vapor into someone else’s face is rude, no question. But just vaping next to them? WTF? How is that even rude, let alone rude enough to justify a physical assault? Why, because you might smell it? Do like you would with perfume, and let it the fuck go.
@ microraptor #12
Violence is tempting just because someone near you is engaged in a habit you are ignorant and fearful of? Fuck you, you violent fantasizing ass.
Also @ microraptor #12
Yes, it is private property, so they have the authority to ALLOW a harmless behavior by some customers, and just shrug their shoulders at ignorant whiners like you. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean they have to cater to you to the detriment of other patrons. Likewise, if they choose not to allow it, that is also their right, and when that is the case, usually they just DONT ALLOW IT, same as smoking. Don’t project your ignorant attitude onto them. Maybe, unlike you, they know enough about it to decide for themselves that it is allowable, but don’t want to waste their time arguing with you about it.
@ PatrickG #13
First, those huge clouds are probably from what’s called sub-ohm vaping, a subset of devices that are tweaked to produce the biggest clouds of vapor possible. I happen to agree with you that it is freaking obnoxious. Fortunately, that’s a tiny niche in the overall market, and hopefully will prove to be a passing fad in the long run. But I do understand it’s especially popular on the west coast currently, so you have my sympathy. Most vaping devices produce just a bit more vapor than a regular cigarette produces smoke. Weed is another story altogether, and not relevant to discussions of vaping. And it’s only selective enforcement IF vaping has been added to indoor smoking ordinances, and that’s not being enforced. If it hasn’t been, it’s not a matter of selective enforcement, it’s a matter of it being legal to do, so there’s nothing to enforce. Vaping IS NOT smoking, so unless it has been added to the law, it’s just plain legal. And for the record, vaping has not been added to the California state indoor smoking laws, and as far as I can find it hasn’t been banned in Oakland either. So no selective enforcement involved in your anecdote.
@ Dunc #18
Many studies so far have shown that the vast majority of vapers successfully quit or reduce consumption of regular cigarettes. Key phrase being OR. Some people use it to quit. Some use it to cut down. Some just use it as a substitute in places or times where they can’t or don’t want to smoke. It is an alternative, and doesn’t have to be about total tobacco abstinence for every user, for it to have value and benefit to them.
All that said, though, users who DO choose to use it to quit tobacco smoking altogether are far more likely to succeed than by going cold turkey or using “approved” stop smoking methods like patches pills or gums. Like by orders of magnitude.
@ UncleFroggy #21
Citation or retraction needed, please!! WHO exactly has died from vaping? EVER? WTF man? We’re supposed to be the evidence based thinkers, here. NO ONE has ever died from vaping. I’m calling bullshit on that. Back it up, or admit you are wrong.
As for the lack of regulation, I am totally in agreement. Regulation is needed. BADLY. But I want to see reasonable and necessary health and safety and GMP governmental regulations for the liquid, and leave the device manufacturing to industry standards, like most other industries follow. The industry manufacturing standards are coming; US, UK, French, and even Chinese standards have been proposed, published, or are currently in debate. But the government regulations so far proposed are filled with overly and unnecessarily burdensome requirements, like registering every single e-cigarette model separately with the FDA, or banning any flavors but tobacco and menthol, or banning online sales. Liquids and their ingredients need to be regulated. But there’s no good reason the FDA should be requiring each and every variation of the delivery device to be independently “proven” safe. They all do the exact same thing, vaporize the liquid. The FDA’s current proposed “deeming” regulations are a recipe to strangle this lifesaving industry in it’s cradle.
@ johnson cayman #24
Same as I said to microraptor, your ignorance is no good reason to restrict other people’s behavior. You might not know what is in it, but others do, and it has been repeatedly demonstrated to be harmless to others, and far less harmful to the user than the tobacco smoke it is substituting for.
Don’t get me wrong, there certainly are places vaping shouldn’t be allowed. Gas stations, for one. These things have heating coils that could ignite fumes. Labratories or chemical plants. That sort of thing. But all indoor public places that are subject to indoor smoking bans? I haven’t ever heard one good reason; there’s no second hand risk. Just people who are ignorant and fearful due to their ignorance, or offended by the mere fact that it resembles smoking.
Once more unto the breach:
@ Carie #28
Thank you!
@ movablebooklady #29,
@ Josh #31 & 32, YOU FUCKING ROCK! Too much truth to quote! Much better said and more succinct than me.
@ PatrickG #24
Anecdotes are not evidence, and correlation is not causation. IOW you are making an unwarranted assumption that your partner’s asthmatic attack was CAUSED by someone vaping near them.
The primary component of exhaled vapor is Propylene Glycol, the same fucking thing in asthma inhalers, the same fucking thing used as a delivery system for lung transplant medication, the same fucking thing my ASTHMATIC MOTHER was breathing through a respirator to deliver her albuterol when she was hospitalized. SO, yeah, I call bullshit on your anecdotal evidence.
Oops, there should have been a QFT under movablebooklady’s block quote. QFT MBL!
PatrickG Let me be clear: I’m not disputing that vaping can have a smell and that it can irritate the way a perfume does. Agreed. Totally.
But that’s not why most people want vaping banned from indoor places (I know that’s your concern; I’m only pointing out the larger context). They want it banned because of a reflexive, knee-jerk assumption that vapor must be and obviously-no-doubt-duh is as harmful and in exactly the same way cigarette smoke is. That’s what concerns me. The knock-on effects that contribute to the further demonization of vaping. This has consequences far beyond mere banning of where it can be used.
The mere appearance of vapor coming from something that looks a bit like a cigarette does, in fact, provoke huge emotional buttons that express themselves as if they were rational safety concerns when they’re not. That’s an important point to acknowledge. You don’t see people react this way to fog machines at concert venues, for example, which use similar fluid media to produce visible clouds. This is about fear of *smoking* and the fact that vapor reads as “smoking” to people.
It is that—not your legitimate concern—that I object to.
Argl. One more comment, then I’m done for tonight. I think. ;)
I said there was too much truth in Josh’s comments to quote, but I do want to quote and second one part (well actually several, but I’m limiting myself to just one):
Too damn right. The esteemed Hon Lik. He invented the first modern vaping device because he lost his own father to tobacco smoking and wanted to help prevent others from losing their own loved ones. He’s my personal Batman. He deserves a fucking Nobel prize.
(It bothers me that even people who here who know me, like me, and trust that I usually have good judgment will have a hard time hearing this. So profound is the reaction against smoking that it’s impossible to say some things without being accused of being motivated only by “your personal addiction” or “because you’re brainwashed by Big Tobacco.” I’ll try anyway.)
What Daniel Henschl said rings true to me as someone who took up vaping back before any of the tobacco companies had heard of it. Small, independent vendors are not evil. They’re not stooges of big tobacco. Big tobacco wants to regulate them right out of existence, and if you doubt that you’re a fool.
We simply must be able and willing to be rational about this if we care at all about the practical ethical effects that our judgments have on public policy. We must be grown-up enough to acknowledge that vaping is much less harmful nicotine delivery system. We must be willing to say, “OK. It looks like smoking, and I admit it’s hard for me not to let the same emotional associations taint my view of it, but I recognize that it’s not smoking.” Because it isn’t, and it’s better, and that is uncontroversially obvious. No one would have any trouble accepting this if it weren’t for the inappropriate transference of burnt-tobacco-smoke fears that are irrationally (as in, scientifically nonsensical, really) loaded onto nicotine vaping.
If you’re a never-smoker it’s hard for you to see, I know. It’s very tempting to write off people like me, and people like Daniel, as “shills.” Even though I am not and have never been paid by any company that has anything to do with smoking. You need to check that impulse. We’re not wrong, and Daniel and other small vape businesses ARE NOT VILLAINS. Quite the opposite.
Once you’ve stepped back and really looked at this with a effort to control for the culture-biasing from tobacco, I think it’s not hard to see that this is something that should be praised and improved on for health and safety, not something you should be treating as cigarette smoking.
Shorter: I can’t believe that after struggling so hard to get off tobacco and being so grateful to have done it, that I’m now fighting the same well-meaning people who are trying to ban/tax/regulate the thing that got me OFF smoking by treating it as if it WERE smoking.
I’d say it’s funny in a tragi-comic way, but it’s not funny at all. It’s the very definition of ethical perversity. I can’t fucking believe it’s real sometimes.
Actually, I don’t let it go when people wear incredibly strong perfumes. I don’t assault them (and note that I didn’t advocate that, I merely said that the violation of basic social norms by some people was so strong I was surprised there wasn’t a stronger reaction by the people directly next to the activity in question), but I do politely let them know that wearing scent that strong can actually cause harm to people with respiratory ailments, and that they might want to reconsider their choices in light of that information. Because, you know, my partner who I dearly love has a respiratory condition, and I’m more sensitive to that than the ever-so-delicate feelings of vapers who can’t stand the thought they’re at all comparable to those Dreadful Smokers(!) in ANY way.
Thanks for the updated information on Oakland and California. You have convinced me that because something is technically legal, I therefore must support it, never complain about it, or question it in any way. Because anything else is deeply wrong. *snort*
You know, this is the really annoying thing about vaping conversations. Lots of people come in and say “It’s not smoking!”, “Vaping saves lives and you’re a monster!”, and “It’s legal so you can’t complain!”. Not to mention my personal favorite: “#NotAllVapers”.
It’s not smoking, that’s not contested. That doesn’t mean it’s absolutely harmless, particularly for people with respiratory conditions exposed to extremely strong aerosolized scents. Please see my comment above. You describe this type of thing as a niche market, but maybe you really do need to come to the SF Bay Area and get some firsthand experience. It is extremely common here. As is advertising that explicitly says “Get around smoking bans!”, for fuck’s sake.
So yeah, people vaping scented Vanilla Gorilla Armpit product right next to me in a crowded public space? That’s fucking rude and I fully support bans of at least scented products. That doesn’t mean I don’t see value in the product, or disagree that moving to e-cigs/vaping is a wonderful thing compared with the same number of people smoking conventional tobacco. In fact, I’m probably going to switch to e-cigarettes as part of my own mitigation/cessation strategy.
But as a current smoker, and one who does his absolute best to not impose on other people with such a noxious habit, I don’t buy this argument that having to wait an hour or two to vape in well-ventilated conditions without people directly next to you is some crushing regulation. I mean, really, just fucking wait, or chew some gum if you absolutely need that nicotine fix. Smokers do it, so can you!
* And no, of course threats of physical violence are not ok. But nobody said people should be assaulted; at most, there was admission of a bad impulse that should be restrained in the face of people acting like complete assholes.
@ Josh:
I think we’re mostly on the same page, here, and I do agree there is a lot of irrational discussion of vaping and vapor in general. But we’ve got the self-centered Daniel Henschl’s of the world saying things like:
in a thread where I directly commented on severe aggravation of my partner’s respiratory condition — directly due to an asshole vaping in a small shop without ventilation where smoking was banned. That shit made me cough. It sent her to the hospital. And contrary to Daniel’s assertions that such things are “niche”, it’s pretty fucking common around here.
And to be really clear here, what is prompting my concern is precisely the fact that this is no longer a niche thing, that it is spreading and becoming much more common, and that larger shares of manufacturing are being taken up by, yes, tobacco companies, who have a very poor record of managing public health issues, to say the least.
So I’m all fine with decoupling this from smoking bans as such. But I do think bans are entirely appropriate in a lot of locations. I also think it’s important to note that health effects are not the only metric that can be used to determine whether or not an activity is banned, or at least restricted, and attempts to restrict discussion solely to second hand health effects are disingenuous at best.
Patrick: Understand why this is getting pushback. It’s not for no reason. I think if you understand it—even if you don’t share the concerns—you’ll also understand that some of the pushback is not unreasonable.
It’s no good to say “health effects are not the only metric”. That ship has sailed. *Every*. *Single* move to ban vaping in X space is presented as motivated by “health concerns.” It’s a direct piggy-back on actual smoking. Sometimes that’s intentional—folks know full well they get all the benefit of the doubt conversationally when they’re seen to be “concerned about smoking and new kinds of smoking” and will be held to no account at all for anything they claim. And they exploit that. That is what’s dishonest.
So, yeah, people like me are going to object loudly and often and you’ll have to hear it. It’s reasonable and motivated by reasonable concerns. I’m not against regulation of scent-ish things (in theory, talk to me about in practice though or I can’t commit), and I don’t think you’re unreasonable to bring it up. But it’s not the theoretically clean conversation you want to have. It’s already loaded down with ulterior agendas, the biggest of which is that it’s just one component of dishonest fear-provocation with the goal of banning things that look like smoking.
That’s the truth, and it’s not my fault that it’s the truth, and I’m not the bad guy for pointing it out. I can imagine it’s vexing, but your irritation is better aimed at the “health campaigners.” Not at people like me for trying to preserve our own legitimate interests from unethical “health” campaigns.
Patrick—“Tobacco Companies” is not a magical phrase that one can use to invalidate anything that appears to be insufficiently zealous against vaping. The reason tobacco companies are despised is because they sell a lethal product that they fought so long to hide the dangers of. That is called tobacco. E cigarettes are not tobacco. So even if the companies are the most cynical, craven bastards in the universe (pretty much), that doesn’t make the action of manufacturing e cigarettes itself a public health scourge. For example, some of the tobacco companies were or are owned by companies that make foods like Kraft mac and cheese. Yet we’re not clamoring to call the mac and cheese itself a dangerous product just because “Tobacco Companies” have something to do with it.
I know you don’t really mean that, but I do think you’re inadvertently doing some magical transference here. That tobacco companies make cigarettes and have a bad track record is not an argument to treat e cigarettes as if they were the same any more than it makes sense to call macaroni and cheese bad because Tobacco Companies.
Of course I understand why it’s getting pushback. There’s a lot of ridiculous shit being said out there. That’s clear. However, because there are bad actors out there does not de facto invalidate banning an activity in certain locations, and using the existence of bad actors in an attempt to silence debate on the subject of bans is not at all excusable.
What I’m pushing back against is the idea that vaping highly scented products is a no-impact activity for health reasons (people with respiratory conditions), aesthetic reasons (seriously, who wants their coffee shop to smell like a Vanilla Unicorn just took a dump?), and general civility (seriously, it’s a workplace/restaurant/movie theater. Take that shit outside.).
I confess to being more irritated than perhaps I need to be, because a lot of vaping advocates are colossal assholes who proudly claim the mantle of a three-year old screaming “I DO WHAT I WANT!”. See Daniel’s explicitly stated position that since it’s legal, I have no legitimate grounds for complaint (I should just let it go!). So yeah, I’m going to pushback on the pushback, because I consider that an ethically untenable position.
Again note that my concern is strictly limited to scented products. I have no problem with the basic e-cigs where the effluent is basically water vapor.
There is nothing magically transferring at all in expressing concern about a particular product when a particular company with a proven (bad) track record begins manufacturing that product and adding New and Improved Scent Features.
Note again that I’m not rejecting e-cigs/vaping out of hand — in fact, above I said I’m probably going to switch to e-cigs as part of my reduction/cessation strategy — but I don’t find anything strange about side-eying Phillip Morris when they refuse to accurately label their products. But then, more regulation and the like for that.
From the depths of my being, I’d like to offer you a hearty fuck you.
How fucking hard is it for you to process that I’m not talking about unscented vapor? I’ve only said it about eight times now so far. Did you not actually read my description of the event? Did you not read the part about excessive scent? Are you going to argue that scent is nothing more than propylene glycol? Are you going to seriously sit there and type out that scented products are not implicated in respiratory events? Despite the massive amount of evidence to the contrary?
Do you really need me to link you to any number of disability rights groups, respiratory treatment centers, and the like that will correct your staggering ignorance on the subject of scented products and respiratory problems? Are you so pro-vaping that you’ll cling doggedly to your stunningly ignorant and harmful beliefs in the face of that overwhelming evidence?
Fuck off, you heartless shitstain. Take some time and rethink your priorities, maybe pick up some empathy and morality along the way. Until you manage to scrape up some basic decency, I’m done with you, fuckwad.
For clarity, last comment directed at danielhenschel, whose lack of empathy and concern for others is breathtaking.
@ Tony:
Uh, not trying to categorize you as the bad guy. Simply pointing out that narrowing the acceptable topic of discourse to “These groups want a ban for bad reasons” vs. “We must never have a ban, period” is not fruitful.
As to irritation, that’s a renewable resource. I can be irritated with multiple groups at once. :)
To use your metaphor, the ship may have sailed, but it’s not exactly out of sight. And if it has sailed, why NOT discuss secondary issues unrelated to the ban? If the ban is inevitable, why the ton-of-bricks fighting-disinformation approach, while sweeping so much else to the side? An excellent example of this, of course, would be the difference between scented and unscented products, where raising this got you to accuse me of magical thinking about tobacco companies(!), and reduced Daniel into such incoherence he decided I’d made an argument that unscented vapor was a proximate cause in my partner’s asthma attack (pro tip: Daniel — reading comprehension is your friend).
If the ban is not inevitable, I would argue that vaping advocates are doing a terrible job fighting it, and a lot of that is simply the “I want to do this, and you have to put up with it because FREEDOM!” sentiment Daniel expressed. I could probably come up with a less effective way to solicit support, but might take me a while. :)
Don’t know that there’s too much more to be said. I think we’re basically in agreement on most things, and the rest is, as you say, more of a theoretical exercise given the current state of discussion. Wish it could be more, but … eh. People.
Scent free zones are spreading. One example is Saskatoon Transit, which has several buses with scent free zone stickers on them. For the first time last week I actually heard a bus driver warn some customers that they could be kicked off a bus for wearing too much perfume if someone complained.
I have no history of smoking and I started vaping because of the benefits for my ADHD. The cost/benefit result is more than worth it.
Patrick, where do I even start? With every post you reveal 1) that you are ignorant in this subject area, 2) that you have no interest in listening and learning, 3) that you are either misreading or deliberately misconstruing my statements, and 4) that are you are reacting from subjective emotion and ignoring all the objective information I have been linking to.
Let’s quote some examples, shall we?
and
Let’s review what I actually said: “those huge clouds are probably from what’s called sub-ohm vaping, a subset of devices that are tweaked to produce the biggest clouds of vapor possible. I happen to agree with you that it is freaking obnoxious. Fortunately, that’s a tiny niche in the overall market”
See, I was specifically referring to sub-ohm devices, also called cloud-chasers. And those ARE a small niche. I know what is being manufactured. I know what is being sold. I was just at an industry conference last month that included a seminar on consumer preferences. Those high vapor devices are less than 5% of the market. If they seem “pretty fucking common” to you, thats a function of 1) them being more obviously noticeable, which contribute to 2) confirmation bias, and 3) the fact that as I ALSO said, the trend is especially hot on the west coast.
So, you were apparently either misunderstanding or misconstruing me to think I was speaking about vaping in general, speaking out of ignorance of what is or is not “fucking common”, and refusing to listen to someone who actually fucking KNOWS the market.
Oh, and how about this:
Again, not what I said. I did say you should just let it go, and I stand by that. You called the mere act of vaping NEAR someone else “rude.” THAT was what the let it the fuck go comment referred to. Nothing to do with legality.
(And BTW, If you are the sort to chew people out or lecture them for personal choices like perfume, as if it’s any of your damn business, or as if they should have KNOWN it would bother you before you ever aid anything to them, you sir are the rude one, an ass in fact. If you or anyone else tells me that my vapor is bothering them, fine. I will be considerate and stop. But you are basically saying that vaping in public at all is inherently rude, because someone “near” you might be offended. FUCK YOU for that authoritarian assholish bullshit.)
But that was an entirely separate comment from anything to do with legality.
What I said regarding legality was in response to your bullshit unevidenced anecdote that someone vaping at a concert in Oakland was an example of “selective enforcement.” To which it is entirely 100% correct to point out that if it is not prohibited by the indoor smoking ordinances in effect in Oakland or in California, then not stopping it is NOT selective enforcement. That’s a direct rebuttal of your claim, not an “I DO WHAT I WANT!” tantrum. So fuck you for that mischaracterization.
Again, you are either not reading for comprehension, or deliberately misstating my comments. Either way it is clearly an emotional response, as Josh has already said, and not one based on evidence or reason.
And then there’s this:
To paraphrase Dan Ackroyd, “Patrick you ignorant jackass.” The primary components of exhaled vapor are Propylene glycol and it’s metabolic derivatives, and vegetable glycerine, with trace amounts of nicotine and flavorings. NONE of them are basically water vapor.
I won’t blame you for that entirely. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves that so many retailers are afraid of the scary sounding chemical name, so they’d rather lie and call it water vapor. There’s a good reason we need sane and reasonable regulation, to stop unscrupulous claims like that.
As for “scented products,” where the hell do you think that scent comes from? Do you think it is perfume, to make the exhaled vapor smell pretty? The scent is the flavor. The wonderful, enjoyable flavors are a big part of what makes e-cigarettes work for so many people. And if you think that millions of consumers should have to vape flavorless unenjoyable crap just to avoid offending your delicate sensibilities, well there goes that authoritarian assholishness of yours again. What’s next, are you going to ban eating smelly foods indoors in all public places? Fuck you once again.
I hope you actually do switch to e-cigarettes. First, because I want ALL smokers to switch. I want to see the end of widespread smoking before the end of my lifetime. That’s why I moved to fucking China and devoted my life to maintaining and improving quality standards.
But also, because maybe then you’ll learn a fucking thing or two and stop spouting such bullshit. Not to mention I’ll bet you would learn really fast how important those “scents” are. You wouldn’t be able stick to your “no scents” rule that you want to impose on everyone else. Not even for a fucking week. Asshole.
I tried vaping once. I never touched tobacco again. I didn’t even look to quit. I still vape, albeit without nicotine – smoking was always more about fiddling with stuff for me.
What is the problem? I won’t vape in your face. I won’t vape in non-vaping areas. This habit is vastly less dangerous for me, and not at all dangerous for you. I would recommend vaping for any smoker. I’d think everyone would.
Ok, Daniel, deep breaths here. Try to go back and read what I actually said, please. I’m not the clearest writer (first to admit that!), but this really shouldn’t be that hard.
(1) I have neverargued that all scents should be banned. I have argued that strongly scented products are already subject to a number of regulations at a variety of places, ranging from workplaces to hospitals. Your continued mischaracterization of my position as “Ban all scents” is blatantly dishonest.
(2) I have argued that vaping products that produce excessive scent should be banned in locations where smoking is also banned. You may note that in my comments to Tony I have conceded that this might not be an appropriate metric, since what I am concerned about is excessive scent, which does not directly track with health concerns from second-hand smoke.
(3) I have argued that using heavily scented products indoors is fucking rude. You may disagree, but that’s irrelevant to whether I get to consider you an asshole.
I acknowledge your correction regarding water vapor. I intended to make clear that my concern were not the “normal” byproducts of vaping, but those components related to the flavor. My mistake.
I already acknowledged (twice, you can stop bringing it up now) that smoking bans in Oakland and California do not currently include vaping. If you actually read what I wrote, you’ll see I argue that ‘legal’ != ‘desirable’ (or ‘polite’), and that I would advocate for a ban on vaping that produces heavy scents in restaurants, workplaces, airplanes, and the like. Because I, unlike you, think respecting the sensibilities of people who do not enjoy the smell of your product is a decent thing to do, whereas you clearly don’t give a fuck about what anybody else thinks.
You need to acknowledge that heavily scented products are a problem for people with respiratory ailments, that some vaping products produce heavy scents, and that your continued insistence that the rights of millions of people to enjoy scented vapor obviously outweighs any concerns whatsoever is ethically indefensible. Now, of course there’s a discussion to be had about where to draw the line, about what’s reasonable, and the like. You are clearly unwilling to have that discussion, as for you it’s either TOTAL BAN or NO BAN AT ALL, two options, full stop.
You also need to acknowledge that you were an absolutely colossal asshole for dismissing my partner’s hospitalization event. Can I prove 100% that the attack was caused by that sub-ohm (I’m guessing) vaping guy in the shop? No. Can I reasonably infer that because she was not distressed before entering, that exposure to the scent immediately started a coughing fit, that she’d had problems with similar scents before, that it is well documented that scents can trigger respiratory events in susceptible populations — in short, all of that, it is very reasonable to assert that this person’s vaping triggered her asthma attack.
That is not an extraordinary claim, you asshole, and you need to own your complete lack of empathy, compassion, and basic human decency.
@ PatrickG #49
Yes, indeed it is my friend. Not so much yours, I am afraid.
Let’s go to the replay:
No reading comprehension fail on my part there. Just goalpost shifting on yours.
You said:
Nothing there about scented or unscented vapor. Just “being around vapers.” So, goalpost shifting.
And you DID say that being around vapers “sent” your partner into an attack, as in caused it. If that’s NOT directly stating that being around vapers caused it, then WTF were you trying to say? It’s not my reading comprehension that made you say it, or to modify it when it suited your argument better. And fuck you for the incoherence bit. Quote one single incoherent line in any of my posts. I dare you you twit.
You also said
Are you fucking kidding me? All the links I’ve posted to real science that provides strong evidence that the exhaled vapor is not harmful, and is in fact composed primarily of the same PG in your dear wife’s asthma medicine, so there is no good public policy justification for banning it, and all you take away from that is “because FREEDOM?” And you have the gall to fault MY reading comprehension?
Hell, even if that were all I had said, what have you said to refute it? You are directly advocating banning scents that bother you, despite a total lack of evidence of any harm. How is that NOT a violation of personal freedom? What’s the Jefferson quote, “If it neither breaks my arm nor picks my pocket…” My right to swing my arm extends only so far as your nose. But, and here’s the part you have failed at, you haven’t shown how anyone vaping breaks your arm, picks your pocket, or actually strikes your nose. All you have established is that it offends your nose.
Hmmm, where have I heard that argument before? Oh, yes, asshole apologists who say we atheists are too strident, and are doing our own cause more harm than good. I’ll tell you the same thing I tell them. Fuck you, I will advocate my way, you advocate (or not) your way. Sometimes anger is justified. And you have justified a whole hell of a lot of anger from me you pestulent boil.
Daniel, the thing about reading comprehension is that if you’d looked JUST ABOVE the part where I related the attack, you would have seen, bolds in the original, the following words:
I’m done engaging with you until you get it through your thick skull that you actually understand the basic points I’m attempting to make. Among these are:
* Some products are different than others (shocking!)
* Some products produce more/less scent (also shocking!)
* I am talking about social conventions and what I consider polite, as well as bans
* Heavily scented vaping products can be severe irritants
For fuck’s sake, my entire position is basically that some vaping products may actually inconvenience other people, may pose health concerns for susceptible populations, and for these reasons we should consider where and when we allow vaping. That’s all, you bloody idiot.
The bolded words should have been typically strongly scented. Html fail.
@ PatrickG #54
Partrick, I keep going back and not only reading what you said, but quoting it. SO far it’s not helping because you change what you say each time it becomes inconvenient to you. The goalposts are on a truck speeding down the freeway at this point, you dishonest halfwit.
The most honest thing you have said this entire thread.
Well, except for here:
or here
or this
or here
Sure, you also have sometimes paid lip service to a distinction between “lightly scented” and “strongly scented,” But pardon me if I don’t believe for a minute that that’s where your heart is.
Why not? Because of this @34:
key words there being scent-free. As in scents banned. That’s what you really want and you know it. Or are you prepared to define a “light scent” versus a strong one? By what metric? Who gets to decide? Anyone who is offended? You can’t define it, no one can, which is why you are talking about scent-FREE workplaces, not “light scent” workplaces. It’s the only way it could be enforced.
So when you say
knowing that the only possible way to enforce “no strong scented vaping” would be to ban vaping altogether, I conclude that’s what you really want.
And it also doesn’t escape my notice that you are including all the same places that would be affected by adding vaping to the indoor smoking ordinances, so it would have the exact same effect as linking it to second hand smoke, despite your disavowal of that.
Functionally, your new goalpost is the same as your old one. And they both stink.
As for your wife, get off your fucking high gore, go back and read what you said that i responded to. wait, never mind, I will quote it for you (again).
All you said at first about the event (@34) was that
. No mention at all about the strong scent. Just “being around vapers” Only later, after I called BS on that did you escalate that description (@43) to
, still no mention of the scent, just an asshole vaper. Now you say it must have been a sub-ohm device, implying that it was not just some vapor near you but a huge cloud, another escalation to your claims. See a trend here bubula? I respond to what you actually said, you then change your story and then blame me for responding to your original story, not the one you changed it to after my reply. And you want ME to apologize? Fine, I didn’t know all the details (because you didn’t tell those details until later) and I came to the wrong conclusion about that situation. I apologize to your wife, please convey that to her.
But to you, I still say fuck you you dishonest asshole. You know damn well you hadn’t said one single fucking thing about strong scents at that time, not in any of your posts up to that point,so calling me insensitive for not taking that into account is bullshit.
More pure dishonesty about my position, or a reading comprehension FAIL. I already said, way back @52 that I will always STOP VAPING when asked to do so, whether for medical reasons or not. THAT is basic civility. What you are wanting is some sort of proactive preemptive “civility” whereby I refrain from vaping in indoor public places EVER whether or not anyone present has a respiratory condition, whether or not anyone present actually objects, and whether or not it is the law or the rule.
My way DOES demonstrate that I give a fuck what they think. When they tell me what they think, I accept it and respond accordingly. Your way demonstrates that you don’t give a fuck what other people think, you want everyone to follow your personal rule regardless.
Look, shit for brains, it’s not about the right to “enjoy scented vapor,” it’s about whether smokers succeed or fail in switching to vaping. It’s about tens of millions of tobacco related deaths that switching to vaping can prevent in the next decade in the US alone (According to an estimate by the American Association of Public Health Physicians). It’s about what it takes to make vaping an enjoyable and satisfying alternative, so much so that people will prefer it to smoking and not go back.
You want to rank your wife’s hospital visit, which I will grant is not nothing, as a “raise” (your exact word) over Josh’s fucking life threatening heart attack, and the distinct probability that he would have become one of those tobacco related deaths if vaping hadn’t worked for him. You want to rank sensitivity to people with respiratory problems over concern for the fucking lives of smokers.
Good fsm almighty. Do I need to quote your own fucking words AGAIN?
Now, do I have to explain again how the only unscented product would be an unflavored one, which would satisfy exactly no one? Or are you going back to the strong scented ban again a’la’
Are you ready to explain how such a partial ban would be enforced without actually being a total ban? Are you ready to explain how we would decide WHICH public indoor spaces it should be allowed in, and which not, or are you ready to admit that calling for a “strong scent ban” IS calling for a total ban on vaping in indoor public places?
I’ve already admitted there are places that a ban is appropriate. There are good sound public policy reasons they shouldn’t be allowed in hospitals. It would be unsafe to allow them in gas stations. It would be irresponsible to allow them in grade schools or high schools. All very good reasons, and I’m sure there are other good examples.
But preemptive bans to avoid the maybe possible coincidence that a vaper and a person with a respiratory illness might be in the same room is not one of them. In that situation, the pone a t risk should politely ask the vaper to stop. Period. That’s your reasonable and civil solution, just like perfumes or strong smelling food. Take it or leave it, or admit you just want them banned. And either way, fuck off while you’re about it.
@ PatrickG #56
Oh, I certainly noted that quote, as well as
and
I ignored all that as a bunch of angry hyperbole, casual insults to vapers, assuming they weren’t an actual part of your argument. But is that really a serious point for you?
Is that your new goalpost? You already abandoned the “unequal enforcement if it is allowed where smoking is not” argument, and now I guess you are abandoning the “respiratory illness” argument, since respiratory illness aren’t affected by the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the irritants. So, your new goalpost is a mere aesthetic one, an objection of personal taste that you find some of the odors unpleasant? Are you now saying that if it was a strong but pleasant scent, that would be ok?
If that’s not your argument then WTF is the point of saying that you find some of the odors unpleasant? Or of pointing out that I didn’t respond to it?
But, if it is your new argument, I come back again to the strong smelling food analogy. Would you assert the same right to ban food odors you find unpleasant, regardless of whether the consumers find it unpleasant, even in places where eating other food is permitted? If not, how is vapor different? Or are you going to go back to the respiratory irritant argument and abandon the new unpleasant smell argument?
And what about coffee? You mentioned coffee shops. They have a VERY strong odor lingering around them at all times. Do you object to that? Would that set off your wife’s asthma? If not, what about a strong coffee flavored vapor? Why or why not? What’s the difference?
What about candy flavors? Would peppermint be an irritant? What about Chocolate? Or fruit flavors like watermelon, grape, strawberry? All very pleasant, not at all ass like. Are those OK to vape under your new goalpost?
What about pourporri or scented candles with those odors?If you would support a ban on strong scented vapor, would the same ban apply to those? Why or why not?
As for your lame bullet points:
Both are true but irrelevant.
Yes some vapor products are different from others. They may produce more vapor, the liquids have different flavors, some stronger and some weaker. How do you distinguish between them in practice? How do you define an acceptable or unacceptable level of vapor or odor? Or which odors are pleasant or unpleasant? Who decides? If you can’t answer that, then the fact that some devices and some flavors are different or stronger than others is totally irrelevant. If there is to be a ban it would have to be all devices and flavors or none.
And I’ve already explained why your idea of politeness in this situation is a fucked up way of looking at it. The onus is on you and your wife to be mindful of her condition, and to actually engage with the people around you to ASK for their cooperation. At that point, if they do not do the decent thing, then it’s fair to call them rude and impolite. But they are not rude just for vaping in public when someone sensitive to it happens to be there. The onus is not on them to anticipate that and therefore they have no obligation to proactively avoid vaping around everyone and anyone else just in case someone has a respiratory problem.
And hell, for that matter, have you even considered for ONE moment just how many VAPERS there are with respiratory illnesses? Who depend on vaping to avoid going back to the cigarettes that would kill them? Where’s YOUR consideration for them, fuckwad?
Your dishonesty and misrepresentation is all summed up by this line:
Ok, now you’re just making me laugh, you bloviating idiot. Since you’re constitutionally unable of actually reading what I write, let’s try one. more. time:
I’m saying that some products should not be used in public indoor spaces, out of consideration for the health and comfort of others.
For this amazingly tepid position — and come on, you have to admit this is extremely mild — you:
(1) accused me of being totalitarian;
(2) can’t understand that an indoor ban does not mean a total ban;
(3) assert my position would — FORCE — people to consume tobacco, thus killing them;
(4) demonstrate that you give absolutely no fucks about people with very real allergy and respiratory problems.
The first three are just ridiculous. Especially that third one. I mean, we’re in black helicopter territory with that one. But that fourth item is what leads me to believe you’re either drunk or a sick, sick fuck who doesn’t give a flying rat’s asshole about others.
Feel free to write another rant about how giving a shit about other people means I want to ban french fries like Hitler did. I promise I won’t bother responding to you, you pathetic wanker.
My dishonesty? Name one single dishonest or untrue thing I have said. Quote one single time that I misquoted you or mischaracterized your arguments. Just one. I have quoted you directly throughout.
You on the other hand have repeatedly claimed I said things I did not say at all, and just did it again three fucking times. You’ve even lied about what you yourself said, I quoted you doing that just back in #58.
I’m throwing this to the horde; who thinks I’ve been dishonest and who thinks he has?
You have also said you would support a ban in large parts of the public like workplaces, restaurants and airplanes. And that anyone vaping in indoor public spaces is in your eyes being rude for not having the forethought to consider that someone with respiratory problems might be there. All of which is a lot less “tepid” than what you are now claiming is all you are saying.
And please stop being vague and coy. Which products? Just e-cigarettes? What about strong smelling coffee? Or scented candles? Or perfume? You already said you would support a ban in some places for e-cigs, should perfume, coffee, and scented candles be banned in those same places or not? If not, how are they different? Support your stupid argument, don’t just restate it in a deceptively miild manner.
Damn. Borked the block quotes. Let me see if I can straighten this out…
My dishonesty? Name one single dishonest or untrue thing I have said. Quote one single time that I misquoted you or mischaracterized your arguments. Just one. I have quoted you directly throughout.
You on the other hand have repeatedly claimed I said things I did not say at all, and just did it again three fucking times. You’ve even lied about what you yourself said, I quoted you doing that just back in #58.
I’m throwing this to the horde; who thinks I’ve been dishonest and who thinks he has?
You have also said you would support a ban in large parts of the public like workplaces, restaurants and airplanes. And that anyone vaping in indoor public spaces is in your eyes being rude for not having the forethought to consider that someone with respiratory problems might be there. All of which is a lot less “tepid” than what you are now claiming is all you are saying.
And please stop being vague and coy. Which products? Just e-cigarettes? What about strong smelling coffee? Or scented candles? Or perfume? You already said you would support a ban in some places for e-cigs, should perfume, coffee, and scented candles be banned in those same places or not? If not, how are they different? Support your stupid argument, don’t just restate it in a deceptively miild manner.
Seriously, who again is being dishonest and misrepresenting whom here? I never called you totalitarian. I called your arguments “authoritarian assholish bullshit.” Twice. In comment #52. Not you, and not totalitarian, that wouldn’t be accurate. Authoritarian, which fits. Read a fucking book. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1971601.The_Authoritarians
This is either another example of you mischaracterizing my argument, or a legitimate and mutual misunderstanding. When you said
I never thought that you meant a ban on the marketplace, and I certainly never meant that when I was talking about you supporting a ban. I always understood that we were discussing indoor use in public places, and a ban in that is all I ever meant or understood you to mean.
So let me clarify. I was not arguing either that you were calling for a total ban on the sale or manufacture of e-cigs, or that banning them in some places amounted to a total ban. My argument is and always has been that 1) you DID call for a ban on vaping indoors in public places, and that 2) when you walked back on that to arguing for a limited ban on vaping SOME high strong scented products, you were arguing dishonestly, in bad faith, because such a ban is impossibly subjective and therefore any effective and enforceable ban would by necessity be a ban on ALL flavors and devices.
Now, instead of lying AGAIN about either what you said or what I said, can you please address THAT point? Can you acknowledge that the limited ban on some forms of vapor that you find offensive cannot work in practicality, so any such ban would be effectively a total ban (on vaping indoors in public spaces that fall under that law)?
Another outright lie about what I said. I never said anything about forcing them back to smoking, or about conspiracies, or blaming you.
I said, and I stand by it, that there are MANY vapers, like Josh and myself, who depend on e-cigs to avoid going back to smoking, and some of them have respiratory diseases caused by their smoking. The addiction doesn’t disappear, not even years or decades later. Relapse rates among those who “quit” smoking prove that beyond a doubt. SO it is hypocritical to claim to be acting in the interests of respiratory illness sufferers, but ignore that your position is against the best interests of a large portion of them.
No conspiracy theory, no accusations of force. Just two simple facts. The leading cause of respiratory illness in the US is smoking. The best way to stop smoking ever devised is vaping as an alternative.
From those facts follow the conclusion, anything that helps keep people satisfied and enjoying vaping, helps keep them from falling back onto cigarettes. And the collorary, that any thing that detracts from their enjoyment or satisfaction, such as limiting what flavors they can use, or how strong the flavors can be, or even where and when they can vape, makes it that much harder to keep vaping instead of just lighting up again. They’re fantastic tools, but they aren’t magic, and relapses can still be likely.
Oh, I certainly hope that I have demonstrated that I am in the negative “fucks” zone where you personally are concerned. But please explain to me how stopping when someone asks me to is a demonstration that I don’t give a fuck? Please tell me how exactly not wanting to refrain from vaping (or be banned from vaping) when I have no particular reason to suspect that someone around me has a medical condition means I don’t give a fuck about that condition?
You don’t seem to give a fuck about anyone but yourself and others in your shoes. You don’t seem give a fuck about smokers trying to quit, or vapers trying to stay quit.
You just want to protect the interests of your tribe even at the expense of the interests of others. I want a truly civil arrangement, where if I am bothering you, please tell me and I will stop. But if you aren’t there, and no one else who is there is bothered LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE AND GET OUT OF MY DAMN BUSINESS, YOU AUTHORITARIAN ASSHOLE. (There, that time I DID call you authoritarian. Still not totalitarian, though.)
Is that clear enough? I DO give a fuck about people who are bothered, whether it’s because of medical reasons, or just personal discomfort. And that’s why I act accordingly. I don’t vape around them. That’s whether they say something, or I notice their discomfort on my own. AND I apologize.
You on the other hand don’t give a fuck about anyone else, you want them to behave at all times (in certain places) AS IF someone is bothered by their vapor (even if no one is). You already said you consider it rude JUST FOR DOING IT AROUND YOU, even BEFORE you say anything to them.
Ah, and you flounce out, lobbing a Godwin (and another lie about anything I’ve said) behind you. Stay classy Patrick, and please stick the flounce.
silly
I realize I’m dropping into a long discussion somewhat blindly, and admit I haven’t finished reading the comments here, but I can’t resist mentioning (albeit anecdotally) that I have found fairly good results when explaining vaping to friends and acquaintances by asking if they’d ever been to a concert or a play or a party which used a fog machine. This may be simplistic, but both the fog machine and vape stick use the same material to generate “smoke” but one is mixed to produce bigger plumes with no consideration for taste and the other is mixed to deliver nicotine* and flavor.
I’m sure nobody sensible wants to stick their face in front of a fog machine, but the fact is that you** always could.
*or not – all e-juice comes in a range of nicotine concentrations starting at 0mg – but this was probably mentioned upthread already
**assuming a “you” which is not otherwise in respiratory distress
Ewan R: I worked in the lab at a lenscrafters for a stint when I first moved to the US. We had one customer ask a salesperson, rather snootily, if the transition lenses (the ones that go dark in sunlight) operated at the molecular level (hah, you’re an entry level sales person with very limited technical knowledge in a single field, see how I can baffle you with scientication!).
Heh. I remember a line from Alien: Someone says the creature’s exudation is “stronger than molecular acid!”
@65, caseloweraz
The line was “I haven’t seen anything like that except molecular acid.” I believe. Still silly, but not quite as silly.
At least it’s vapor and not smoke. It hasn’t been pyrolyzed and hasn’t been partially oxidized.
PatrickG made the mistake of assuming that the market is the same US-wide as it is where he lives.
You made the mistake of assuming that the market where PatrickG lives is the same as the national average.
Bloodbath ensues.
danielhenschel failed to see your actual argument because his attention jumped at your tone. He should practice more; and you should work a little bit harder at not sounding like you’re talking about your own personal taste – I like vanilla; I wouldn’t lose anything if strawberries or yoghurt were abolished wholesale, to put it mildly.
Thanks, Matrim (#66). I often misremember movie lines. Perhaps what was intended by the scriptwriter was a reference to molar concentration, as in this chart.
I don’t have time for this…however.
@ PZ: What an odd display of petulant pedantry. The press release wasn’t written for your consumption. It was written for the consumption of the press who have to reach people with an 8th grade reading level or less. You know — Republicans, vapers, etc.
…and your complaint is primarily about the click-baity headline. Really? Here’s the first paragraph of the ATS press release.
What in the world else do you want? That’s almost exactly how you described the study’s findings.
@16 latsot…congratulations, you got it 100% wrong. See above.
@ danielhenschel…many, many citations required. Vaping is not a “healthy alternative” to cigarettes. The analogy would be to say if you’ve been driving 100 miles an hour in a school zone and then you dropped it down to 80, that you’re engaging in a safe driving practice. Inhaling toxic chemicals is still inhaling toxic chemicals.
I’m not going to fisk your entire post(s) but your first argument right out of the deck — that e-cigarettes aid in smoking cessation — is contrary to the data. Four longitudinal studies have been done and the pooled odds from those studies indicate a 40% REDUCED likelihood of quitting smoking by e-cig users compared with non-users. I’m going to assume that all of your other arguments are similarly cock-eyed.
Disclaimer: I just got back from ATS, but I am not affiliated with ATS in any way. None of my work is involved with tobacco, lung cancer, or vaping.
@
Not the only thing I need to work on, but then I have my reasons for not regularly commenting. :)
But yeah, the initial comments were really intended to be more general complaints about politeness than anything. It wasn’t until the doubling-down on scent not possibly being a trigger for respiratory events that I got angry, and therefore less coherent.
Another learning episode on how to internet, I suppose.