

Confounding a Smoking Ban, and Bouncers - pdog
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/fashion/smoking-is-back-without-the-stigma.html?pagewanted=all

======
Fuzzwah
_" Andrew Beaver, chief marketing officer for NJOY, likened smoking
e-cigarettes to the early days of hands-free Bluetooth conversations: what
looks strange now will soon appear normal."_

Yeah, people walking around talking on bluetooth headsets still look like
douche bags to me.

~~~
qzxt
because?

~~~
GeneralMayhem
Association. Most people associate constantly wearing a Bluetooth headset with
douchey, self-important MBA types. There's nothing wrong with the tech per se,
it just got adopted by an unpopular crowd first.

~~~
oftenwrong
I wonder if eyeglass-like wearable computers will suffer for the same reason.

~~~
Fuzzwah
I haven't actually ran into someone wearing them yet so I can't report on my
personal response.... but I suspect I'll dislike them instantly.

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Rickasaurus
The big deal about these e-cigs is that they're converting long term smokers.
Two years ago for christmas I bought all of the smokers in my family e-cig
kits. My grandmother refused to try it, and died a year later from emphysema
complications. However, my mother has been cigarette free for over a year and
a half! That's after 35 years of tobacco use. It's a huge deal for me because
now I don't have to worry about her slowly wasting away over 10 years like my
grandmother did.

Also, Nicotine is a nootropic. Studies suggest that it enhances general
attention and memory retention. Check out this site for collected studies and
information: [http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine](http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine)

~~~
s_q_b
Helped me quit smoking, as well as several of my friends. It's a much more
effective transition because it mimics the entire ritual of smoking, not just
the nicotine hit.

Mostly, nicotine was very secondary to the other reasons I would smoke. First,
it's a great excuse to step outside alone, or with a small group. that's
invaluable to an introvert-playing-an-extrovert like me. Second, cigarettes
are a great study break. You let your mind wander, while your subconscious
chews on problems. It's like taking a shower, but you can do it several times
a night without leaving the library. Third, they're a countercultural flag.
Want a good icebreaker when talking to hipsters, hackers, the Russian grad
student programmers? Smoke a cig with them. Finally, there's a certain ritual
to cigarettes that becomes very calming. Step outside, light up. Go to class,
light up. Leave a party, light up.

E-cigs are so effective because they fulfill almost all of these needs. All in
all, e-cigarettes probably added several years to my life.

~~~
Fuzzwah
I've moved from Australia (Melbourne specifically) where the counter-counter
culture is to smoke roll your own cigs. Since moving to the US I've stopped
smoking because:

a) I couldn't find a brand of roll your own tobacco I liked b) none of my
friends here smoke

I really do miss the ritual of "creating and smoking" a cigarette. I can't
really see any of the e-cig brands coming out with anything that mimics that
ritual.

~~~
guizzy
There's rebuildable atomizers or DIY liquid then.

At its most basic, an ecig is made of two devices: a battery and an atomiser.
The heating element in the atomiser, a coil of resistance wire wrapped around
some sort of wick, is consumable. Either the whole atomizer (in the case of a
cartomizer) or the atomizer head (in the case of most clearomizers) has to be
replaced every few months. Rebuildable atomizers are made so that you can make
your own heating coil and wick instead of throwing out the cartomizer or head.
There's a lot of technique to making good coils, almost like a craft.

It's also possible to mix you own liquid from ingredients.

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mistercow
Man, I have never seen an article where one side of an argument seemed so
consistently silly. Really, you're banning it because people might see it and
decide to light a real cigarette?

And how does one figure that this "turns back the clock on public health
advances"? It has the potential to turn countless potential smokers to a way
safer (and perhaps even negligibly dangerous) alternative. How many otherwise
nonsmokers would have to start using ecigs to cancel the benefit of _one_
otherwise smoker using them?

I feel like this is what happens when a newspaper feels the need to present
"both sides" of an issue that maybe has 1.1 sides.

~~~
freehunter
>Really, you're banning it because people might see it and decide to light a
real cigarette?

I can actually see where they're coming from on this one, and in part, it's
the fault of the e-cig makers for producing and pushing look-alikes. With some
popular brands (mainly gas station disposables, but not always), the e-cigs
_actually look like cigarettes_. The problem isn't that it puts the idea in
the smoker's minds, its that the smokers think the other people are
legitimately smoking. If he's got a cigarette, I can have one too, right? The
e-cigs that have blue tips or don't resemble normal cigarettes won't give off
this confusion.

If I saw someone smoking in an area, I might think it would be okay to smoke
there too.

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Shivetya
I do doubt we will reach the point of 60s and early 70s sitcoms where
cigarettes were common.

Two questions. What is in the exhaled vapor? What is to prevent there use in
delivering substances other than nicotine? Combined with the first question is
what worries me.

They are present where I work, but the users must go outside like regular
smokers. I would love to see studies done on these like cigarettes and think
the FDA needs to get onto it quickly.

~~~
gwern
The studies have been done. Nicotine on its own is orders of magnitude safer
than tobacco (and so I find this scaremongering sensationalistic NYT article
deeply anger-inducing if it means that _anyone_ decides to keep smoking rather
than switch to e-cigs or if it helps ban or regulate e-cigs), which is why
things like nicotine patches and gum are no longer prescription-only.

~~~
readme
@MrMember

Sorry I deleted my other comment, but I can't help but laugh at your response
that they exhale propylene glycol, ROFL.

That's the chemical used to de-ice airplanes!!!

Wikipedia says that the oral toxicity of it is low, but it can be harmful in
large amounts.

So I would have to casually guess that the long term effects of it, and if you
smoke heavily, that it could be a problem.

~~~
freehunter
You know what chemical we use around here to de-ice? Salt. Both of these are
generally recognized as safe and are approved for both human and animal food
additives. The anti-freeze that is made with propylene glycol is labeled as
non-toxic.

So really I'm not sure what you're laughing at.

~~~
readme
I wouldn't want to inhale and exhale salt all day, either.

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leoedin
I think these are great. They have definitely helped some people move away
from smoking, and any argument that they pose a health risk is fairly moot
given the alternative.

However, I do think that there needs to be some legislation surrounding them.
We should ensure that children and teenagers can't easily buy them - just
because they're not _as_ harmful as cigarettes doesn't mean that they're
completely harm free. I'm also deeply suspicious of allowing marketing of an
addictive product - much like cigarette marketing I think it has the potential
to destroy lives.

I do think that the people (mostly middle aged men) I see wandering around
with a large e-cigarette around their neck on a cord look like complete idiots
though.

~~~
dkuntz2
> any argument that they pose a health risk is fairly moot given the
> alternative.

What? You mean the alternative to _not smoking_?

~~~
freehunter
E-cigs are marketed pretty strongly towards current smokers. In that group,
not smoking is a fairly difficult alternative to accept.

~~~
dkuntz2
Is it not still an alternative? It may be a difficult alternative, but it is
still an alternative.

~~~
freehunter
How effective has the "stop smoking cold turkey" campaign been? There are
still people who smoke, massive numbers. In this wake is billions of dollars
of smoking cessation products. Still, some people smoke, for reasons they have
and are comfortable with. So why not have a middle ground? E-cigs are cheaper,
seem to be safer, and help people out (including those who don't smoke). So
why get all worked up over it? It's legitimately helping the problem. Smokers
who use e-cigs are no longer affecting your life in any way.

Put it this way: cars are dangerous. Lots of campaigns exist to keep people
from driving. Driving has economic, political, and environmental issues
pushing against it. But still people drive, despite the risks. So rather than
trying to force everyone to bike or walk, what's the harm in lower emissions,
electric vehicles, and improvements in vehicle safety? Make it safer to drive,
safer to be around drivers, and better for the environment when people _do_
drive. Is that not an acceptable alternative?

~~~
dkuntz2
I'm not getting worked up over anything, I'm merely stating that not smoking
is an alternative, which is something leoedin left out. Everything that's
followed is my insistence that not smoking is an option. I have made no claims
to the ease or feasibility of it as an option.

I've made no claim for or against e-cigarettes. I've made no claim for or
against smoking in general in this thread. The only claims I've made are that
not smoking is an option. The reason I made that claim was, as stated above,
the original comment failed to mention that not smoking was an option.

On the car front, yes, cars are bad, I agree, wholeheartedly, but America made
a decision to emphasize cars over trains post-WWII, which is why I use one. As
for biking and walking, those are infeasible options for long distances.
Fascinating that you neglected to include trains.

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readme
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_cigarette#Toxicity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_cigarette#Toxicity)

Seems like there are some indications that many of these contain toxic stuff.

Will not be surprised in a few years when a brand new cancer is discovered
because of this.

~~~
mzs
The mist is hot too, I heard of a measurement of 56C at throat once, just
googled, but can't find the source anymore.

~~~
freehunter
Yeah, the mist is hot. It uses heat to vaporize the liquid. Even at 56C, it's
not far outside the temperature range of a typical cup of coffee [1].
According to that link from coffeedetective.com, coffee should be served
closer to 80C. They even list the low end of proper coffee temperature at 65C
(and other sources I found on Google corroborate). As nicotine and caffine
serve similar functions, I'm not sure that the temperature at the throat is
necessarily an issue. How many people pour a fresh cup of coffee and breathe
in the steam coming off the top? I know I do occasionally.

[1] [http://www.coffeedetective.com/what-is-the-correct-
temperatu...](http://www.coffeedetective.com/what-is-the-correct-temperature-
for-serving-coffee.html)

~~~
mzs
That's a good argument, I'm a sort of a wierdo, almost always let everything I
eat or drink cool down to room temperature first, so it seems hot to me.

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jstalin
As long as it doesn't make me stink like a chimney when I get home from a bar
or restaurant, then more power to them.

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Raphmedia
Hey, if it isn't giving ME cancer and it's odorless, they can puff it all over
my face if they want.

~~~
guizzy
It's not odorless, but most of the liquids have pleasant smells.

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mey
As a non-smoker, I wouldn't call it pleasant.

~~~
guizzy
It depends on the liquid, really. There's no inherent smell to ecigs; it's all
in the flavoring. So if someone is vaping peach flavored liquid, it will smell
like peaches. If it's tobacco flavored, it will smell like tobacco.

