To ask for the e-cigarette hysteria to now stop

[LittleLionMansMummy]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-33978603

Or at least commission some research into passively smoking them so that the hysterical banning of them in public places might cease and organisations can instead support their employees to give up smoking real cigarettes. I know that the issue of smoking is divisive, but can't we all agree that if e-cigarettes really are 95% less harmful then they, and the people who smoke them, should have our unreserved support?

I want ALL the hysteria to stop. Over everything. And i want to ban the word hysteria. Here, on FB, in RL. Just stop screaming everyone!

A life with no hysteria would be a dull life indeed though Surly!

Isn't the word sexist though?

Tbh, they're going to stop all forms of charging as a charger for a blackberry burned out a while back.

Ok just ban it for the rest of august. There has been enough in august now to last the month.

And yes, hysteria i think related to uteruses (hysterectomy?) and how women were percieved to be affected by menstrual cycle. Could be way wrong. Not sure.

Hysteria is also a brilliantly funny film with maggie gyllenhall (sp?) which i wouldnt ban. Worth a watch.

YANBU!

Don't do it myself but it is something that really helps smokers quit especially when they have tried everything else - have seen that first hand.

I've never really noticed a strong smell from any ecig.

3 years is amazing, well done!

I dont understand the hysteria either dh has one the smell isnt unpleasent and far more pleasent than tobaccoand its far healthier.

Vaping is the only thing that has stopped a number of my friends smoking; some of these people had been smoking for twenty to thirty years.

I actually think vapers will make tobacco smoking more socially unacceptable as it becomes apparent that there is a safer and cleaner alternative for nicotine intake that delivers much of the same ritual of consumption.

Incidentally, in the last year or so, vapers have become more cleverly engineered so that the amount of nicotine required in e-liquid can be reduced for a similar vaping experience. One of my friends invested in a good piece of kit and is now on 6mg/ml liquid.

I'm not hysterical, I just want it subjected to the same rules as traditional smoking; it has no place in shops, hospitals and other public buildings.

There are a few problems with sending vapers out to stand with the smokers:

1. Vapers have as much right as any other non-smoker not to be subjected to second-hand smoke.

2. It puts vapers at risk of relapse. Vaping is pretty good as a way to quit smoking but it's not a magic bullet. Lots of people don't find it quite as satisfying as a smoke and, especially in the early days, I can think of no better way to sabotage someone's quit attempt.

3. It makes smokers less likely to switch in the first place. Yes they should want to quit for their health alone but people aren't really like that, it's often the smaller, 'nudge' type reasons that trigger a quit attempt.

It's currently up to individual premises whether to allow vaping or not and that's how it should stay. Ecigs definitely have a place in hospitals, especially mental health settings, as PHE point out:

there is an opportunity for e-cigarettes to help tackle the high smoking rates among people with mental health problems, particularly in the context of creating smokefree mental health units

What Plenty said.

Procrastinator - why should it? The reason cigarettes are banned in those areas is because the harm caused by smoking and passive smoking is well known and evidenced. What evidence is there that vaping causes harm to others? There is none. Hence my call for more research.

It's still smoking, even if it is synthetic. It still smells and it's not suited to a work or public environment. If a person can't go without using an e-cigarette for a few hours then they have as many problems with that as they did with smoking. The idea is to enable people to stop, not just blithely carry on getting a fix without looking at the root addiction. So yes, users should be lumped in with smokers, because they are smokers. As a non smoker I hate the smell of the damned things, particularly the vanilla and sweet fruit ones and find them almost as offensive on my nose as actual cigarette smoke and in some cases can cause the most hideous headaches. They're banned on the buses and in council buildings up here, they're banned from school sites and they're banned from shops and shopping centres too. I'm glad I live in a reasonably sensible city.

Procrastinator, in your opinion it's smoking. As a fact, it's not.

Why are addictions inherently bad? They're as bad as the harm they do to the person and do to society. Smoking is harmful not because of nicotine but everything else. Nicotine itself is no more harmful than caffeine, which many people are addicted to.

Sorry to pick your post apart, Procrastinator, but sometimes it's useful when there are a lot of harmful misconceptions.

It's still smoking, even if it is synthetic.
No it isn't, that's the whole point. Do you understand what smoke is? Is the cloudy stuff that comes off things which are burning and is full of carbon monoxide, toxins and carcinogens. Nothing burns when you vape, there is no smoke. There's a kind of steam (technically an aerosol) from vaping which has far more in common with the steam from your kettle or cup of coffee. That's why it's at least 95% safer.

It still smells and it's not suited to a work or public environment.
Vaping produces a faint aroma depending on the flavour used. These are all food flavourings so you'll be already familiar with them from sniffing food. Unlike cigarette smoke, vapour drops out of the air within a couple of minutes and there's no side-vapour (analogous to the side-smoke when a cigarette is being held but not puffed on). It only takes someone wearing a moderate amount of perfume or aftershave to completely drown out the scent IME.

Different workplaces can set their own rules, just as they can with employee dress codes. Some workplaces don't want employees to visibly vape because of their image which is absolutely fine as long as they are not sending vapers to actually stand with smokers. I guarantee that if such workplaces have vaping employees, they will be vaping in the toilets or otherwise stealthing it. Nobody knows, nobody cares, nobody dies.

Public environments generally should welcome vapers because it incentivises smokers to switch and therefore not die prematurely. Some public environments may not be suitable for vapers on the grounds of etiquette, not health. Suitable facilities can be provided and there is no reason these can't be indoors.

If a person can't go without using an e-cigarette for a few hours then they have as many problems with that as they did with smoking.
Well not really because they are massively less likely to die prematurely or suffer for decades with a hideous smoking-related disease. They are also no longer causing harm to those around them. Dunno about you but I think those things are quite important.

The idea is to enable people to stop, not just blithely carry on getting a fix without looking at the root addiction.
Go on, do that to coffee drinkers, I dare you. Addiction to nicotine on its own is no more harmful than addiction to caffeine which is widespread and celebrated.

As a non smoker I hate the smell of the damned things, particularly the vanilla and sweet fruit ones and find them almost as offensive on my nose as actual cigarette smoke and in some cases can cause the most hideous headaches.
Boo fucking hoo. Small sympathy for the headaches, I have a client at the moment who wears far too much of every sort of 'product' going and tops it up regularly throughout the day. It makes my eyes water and catches my throat. Should he be banned from our premises? Fewer people are at risk of early death because of vaping. Are you getting it yet?

They're banned on the buses and in council buildings up here, they're banned from school sites and they're banned from shops and shopping centres too. I'm glad I live in a reasonably sensible city.
Yes, lots of places are imposing non-evidence-based bans on vaping. They're costing lots of lives. This is a big part of why PHE have published their report:

Since 2013, perceptions of the relative harmfulness of EC have become less accurate. Significantly larger proportions perceived EC to be at least as harmful as cigarettes in 2014 than in 2013 both in the Internet Cohort GB surveys (Figure 16) and in the ASH youth surveys(Figure 17[64]). In the Internet Cohort GB survey, there was no significant change from 2012 to 2013, but from 2013 to 2014 the proportion thinking that EC were less harmful decreased in favour of equally or more harmful.

These are people who are massively increasing their chance of an an early death because they have been misled about the risks of vaping. You don't live in a reasonable sensible city, you live in a city which actively works against smokers switching to something which could save their lives. Are you sure you're glad about that?

Once again, pubes nails it!

I quit a 20+ a day habit that started age 14 using e-cigs and totally agree I wish the hysteria would stop!

On the other hand though, I also wish arsehole vapers would stop too, as they are well on their way to ruining it for the rest of us.

Me and a guy in the workshop used to vape, totally on the sly. We'd hold it in for about 5 seconds and barely even a whiff of vapour comes out on the exhale. Just the odd puff here and there. Boss and co-workers all fine with this, we both stuck to plain old vanilla/ caramel for work (one lady couldn't stand the smell of cherries and anything honey related smells god awful IMO).

Then it catches on and before you know it you have steam trains literally billowing clouds of the stuff where ever they please. Management caught on. Whats the result? All vaping now barred in the workplace and we're out the bag in the god awful, freezing wet fag hut

If vapers don't want it to be banned, have an ounce of respect and do it with descretion if you're not outside. Really, its not hard at all to use an ego type stick and steath vape when you need to. People who chug on huge mods with full VG juice just end up pissing everyone off and are most likely the reason this will get banned anywhere you're not allowed to smoke, which is a shame for current vapers and an even bigger shame for current smokers who might be put off making the switch.

Yeah, I think Pubes makes a number of very reasonable points.

A personal account; I have smoked between 5 - 20 a day since I was 16. The only lengthy period of time I've managed away from cigarettes was a 6 month vaping session earlier this year; I relapsed on holiday in Sweden where they weren't available and my pipe broke. Smoked again for a couple of months, now back vaping and significantly healthier and happier as a result. If even the Torygraph is reporting they are 95% healthier than fags - with absolutely no health impacts on bystanders - then there's no rational reason to ban them.

That being said, I use a pipe with a small vape cloud - I've seen modded versions that surround the user in a massively anti social cloud and don't think it's fair these are used in open spaces where other people feel bothered by them - one more reason for normalisation and regulation of the reasonable variety. I wouldn't use mine on the bus or in the office - but if I'm off to one side of the pub and not impacting on anyone else, I can't see why I can't use it. I wouldn't want to have to go outside for three reasons: 1) I'm trying to actively repair myself and being around a lot of passive smoke would mean a bad outcome for me with no positive outcome for non-smokers; 2) risk of relapse being around smokers when I'm still somewhat wobbly in my recovery from tobacco and 3) let's just live and let live. I'm not doing anyone else any harm. I'm a lot less irritating than someone wearing strong perfume or spraying deo in public - which FYI is very common in London. And - again - it does not harm bystanders.

Would you rather have continuing smokers die?

And I totally agree with everything Plenty said.

I don't really think we should have to vape on the sly, but while there are entitled people in the world such as Pro who think their own comfort takes priority over others, I do think stealthing is the way forward.

Especially with pharma, big tobacco, and probably most of the gov against us. I don't see how ecigs can win, the more popular they get the more lives they are saving- but at the same time the more they will be clamped down on by legislation and regulation which has the potential to ruin it.

I think it's brilliant that you can get the benefits of nicotine without the nasty stuff that comes with it in burnt tobacco.
From what I can gather many people find smoking incredibly hard to give up so anything that makes that easy has to be good.

It seems to me that some people don't like the idea of others being able to easily give up an addiction.
As if they want them to be forced to choose between wrecking their health by smoking or being tortured by cravings.

E-cigs mean that you can have your cake and eat it....that doesnt go down well with some people

(I do not smoke, and never have)

Did wonder if someone was on fire when i saw it for the first time.

To be fair, stating that ecigs allow consumption of nicotine without the health risks ignores the fact that nicotine itself is poisonous and carcinogenic.

The main issue with ecigs is that they are seen as healthy so people don't feel a need to reduce their consumption which may mean a higher intake of nicotine than I'd they were smoking.