City ordinance ban looming in Chicago

[mostlyclassics]

I emailed all the aldermen again, after the proposed ordinance passed out of committee. FWIW, I figured it was time to take off the gloves. Part of my latest email is:

Finally, maybe you can understand this argument:

The City of Evanston, of which my wife and I are residents for the time
being, passed a similarly draconian anti-vaping ordinance some months ago.
When it passed, we immediately decided never to spend a single, red cent
within Evanston ever again. By our calculations, we're not spending roughly
$16,000 in Evanston per annum. More than half of this $16,000 has been going
to merchants, restaurants and taverns in Chicago.

If this ordinance passes, we will NOT spend roughly $10,000 per annum in
Chicago.

There's more. We own a two-flat apartment building in Evanston which we're
planning to rehab in 2014. We expect to spend $80,000 to $85,000 on this
venture. Given the present situation, we were going to use a Chicago-based
general contractor.

If this ordinance passes, we will NOT use a Chicago-based general
contractor, and we will specify that NONE of the suburban-based general
contractor's Chicago employees be used on our rehab. Furthermore, we will
insist the contract EXCLUDE purchases of building material and appliances
within the City of Chicago.

Ask yourself why, over the last half century, has the City of Chicago lost
close to a million citizens? As time has gone on, the demographics of the
city more and more reflect people who are just plain stuck there. How much
of this flight is due to all the crazy social engineering the City Council has
rammed down the throats of the citizenry? Is this REALLY the way you want
the City of Chicago to be?

Politic? No. And I wouldn't recommend anyone else use such an approach.

But I figured this is going to pass anyway — what the nine-fingered Napoleon wants, the nine-fingered Napoleon gets. It was time to shriek at them, IMO.

 

[Blkwdw86]

I hate fascists.

It's not their job to "protect" people from themselves, their job is to run the city of Chicago.

If people would learn to mind their own business, there would be no wars.

 

[swoody]

I hate fascists.

It's not their job to "protect" people from themselves, their job is to run the city of Chicago.

If people would learn to mind their own business, there would be no wars.

I agree completely. If we'd stop trying to protect the idiots from themselves we could solve overpopulation. 'Survival of the fittest' and natural selection would reign... and perhaps the US wouldn't be as low as we are with regards to education.


Woody

 

[Daisey Moonshine]

Coming soon to a city near you...

 

[Funk Dracula]

Ordinance passed 45-4. In effect 30 days from now.

Needles to say, I witnessed my Alderman speak, question the tactics of the people in support of the amendment, only to turn around and support it.

Sad day.

 

[JayEatsAirplane]

Ordinance passed 45-4. In effect 30 days from now.

Needles to say, I witnessed my Alderman speak, question the tactics of the people in support of the amendment, only to turn around and support it.

Sad day.

That's absolutely ridiculous... I don't even know what else to say about that.

 

[Funk Dracula]

That's absolutely ridiculous... I don't even know what else to say about that.

Yeah if anyone feels like making an Alderman feel like crap tweet at him telling him what a coward he is. @ward32chicago

 

[mostlyclassics]

Well, in 30 days we start our total boycott of Chicago.

As of February 15th, neither my wife nor myself will spend one red cent within the Chicago city limits. In the meantime, I'll be searching out sources for things we regularly used to buy there.

Today, I closed out my one brokerage account in the city and transferred the assets to a brokerage with an office in Wilmette (headquarters are in St. Louis).

Shortly I'll also "fire" my philatelic clients in the city. Nor will I sell philatelic material to anyone in Chicago. The loss of income will hurt some, but I'll live.

Our medium-term plans call for rehabbing our two-flat. When my wife decides to retire (probably in a few years), we'll move to another state where people are more tolerant, responsible and civilized.

Though I engage in the practice (the City of Evanston, Starbucks, Lowe's, etc.) I don't usually call for people to boycott anything. But I ask each and every one of you: if you can possibly find the product or service elsewhere, please think twice about buying it in Chicago.

 

[Daisey Moonshine]

Chicago bans indoor electronic cigarette smoking - chicagotribune.com


E-cigarettes will join regular smokes and other tobacco products as forbidden in most indoor public places in Chicago after aldermen today passed a measure backed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to restrict where electronic cigarettes can be used and how they can be sold.

The ordinance, which passed 45-4 after opponents took one last chance to voice their displeasure, will prohibit people from using e-cigarettes in restaurants, bars and most other indoor public places in the city. The measure also will require retailers to sell e-cigarettes from behind the counter so it’s harder for minors to get their hands on them.

Emanuel has made tobacco regulations a recent focus, working to frame the discussion over cigarette sales as a question of how willing elected officials are to protect children from getting lured into addiction at a young age.


At the last City Council meeting, aldermen voted to restrict sales of menthol cigarettes near Chicago schools. Emanuel delivered a short speech from the dais positioning himself as a bulwark against the evils of Big Tobacco. Emanuel also increased the city’s cigarette tax as part of his 2014 budget.

On Wednesday, the mayor used the passage of the e-cigarette regulations as a chance to again lay out his anti-tobacco bona fides, saying Chicago can’t wait for the Food and Drug Administration to take a position on the safety of the products.

“Having worked with the FDA, having encouraged them to take steps to protect individuals and children, they are usually an agency that leads from behind,” Emanuel said. “And when it comes to the city of Chicago, when it comes to the people of the city of Chicago, when it comes to the children of the city of Chicago, I do not believe we should wait.”

But Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, a smoker, continued to oppose the indoor ban on e-cigarettes. Reilly, who said he’s using e-cigarettes to help himself quit, likened e-cigarettes to needle exchanges for ...... addicts and said they help reduce the harm smokers suffer by offering a product safer than conventional smokes. “We’re talking about treating two different products like they’re one, like they’re combustible cigarettes,” Reilly said.

And Ald. Rey Colon, 35th, said he resents how people who oppose greater restrictions on e-smoking have been accused of not having children’s best interests at heart. “I hate to keep using, I keep thinking of that movie ‘My Cousin Vinnie’ – ‘the youths, the youths.’ We keep using the children as an excuse to pass any ordinance we want to pass, because who can deny the children?” Colon said.

 

[Daisey Moonshine]

I am posting two Chicago Tribune articles you can't read online for free without a subscription, so I am posting it here for others to read and discuss on our forum:

Opinion: E-cig debate going off the rails

By Charles D. Connor
January 15, 2014

At its core, the debate over electronic cigarettes in Chicago is part of a larger national debate over e-cigarettes. The debate threatens to go off the rails, however, whenever important distinctions between traditional cigarettes and battery-powered e-cigarettes are obscured. It's safe to say the debate in Chicago is close to reaching that point.

An ordinance before the City Council would impose the same restrictions on e-cigarettes — including bans in public places — that govern conventional tobacco cigarettes. Lacking solid scientific rationale, the proposal is misguided at best. At worst, it would do a public health disservice by keeping a less-harmful product away from smokers.

As a former president of the American Lung Association, I have seen how e-cigarettes have become the subject of much confusion and misinformation. Too often people think they are identical to conventional cigarettes that burn tobacco. Consequently they think that e-cigs should fall under the same rules and restrictions. But they are not the same. E-cigarettes do not involve the exhalation of harmful smoke. They do not involve combustion, which has been recognized by the public health community for years as the real danger of a tobacco cigarette. To me the lesson is clear: Different products require different regulation.

With emerging scientific studies, we have a good understanding of the contents of an electronic cigarette and the vapor it produces. We know that propylene glycol, a main ingredient, is found in many foods that we eat, where it is commonly used as a preservative. And more and more research shows that the harm from e-cigarette vapor is minimal, and negligible compared with smoke from conventional cigarettes.

Michael Siegel, a professor in the department of community health science at Boston University, put it this way in reviewing a recent study: "This study confirms that electronic cigarette use is much safer than smoking and suggests that any health risks associated with passive exposure to electronic cigarette vapor are likely to be quite low."

I believe that including e-cigarettes in the city's smoking ban would constitute a step backward. It would send the unintended message to smokers that electronic cigarettes are as dangerous as traditional cigarettes. If that happens, it would lock in many smokers to traditional cigarettes, a public health outcome we do not want.

In the near future, the Food and Drug Administration will begin developing a policy to regulate but not ban electronic cigarettes. Comments from federal officials point toward a policy that will treat e-cigarettes as separate and distinct from conventional cigarettes.

So do comments from longtime anti-tobacco activists. David Abrams, executive director of the research arm of the nonprofit American Legacy Foundation, wrote this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association that while more research is needed, e-cigarettes with prudent regulations "have the potential to make the combusting of tobacco obsolete." He added: "Statements based on ideology and insufficient evidence could prevent the use of this opportunity before it becomes established as part of harm reduction strategy."

Given the deadly consequences of cigarette smoking, the passion for eliminating tobacco use is understandable and commendable. But a premature "regulate first, ask questions later" approach by Chicago that equates the two products is the wrong answer. A better approach would wait for the FDA experts and take direction from their findings. A misguided e-cigarette ordinance in Chicago will only end up damaging a promising new product that has the potential to save millions of smokers from a lot of harm.

Charles D. Connor is a consultant to the Electronic Cigarette Industry Group and a former president and CEO of the American Lung Association.

 

[Daisey Moonshine]

Opinion: The smoke behind e-cigarettes

By Stanton A. Glantz
January 15, 2014

Electronic cigarettes are designed to look, feel and taste like cigarettes and are being aggressively promoted as a safe alternative to smoking cigarettes that doesn't produce secondhand smoke. It is true that, because e-cigarettes deliver nicotine — the addictive drug in cigarettes — with a heated aerosol of propylene glycol and other chemicals rather than by burning tobacco, a puff on an e-cigarette delivers fewer toxic chemicals than a puff on a cigarette.

The problem is that almost all "vapers" keep smoking cigarettes at the same time, which makes this fact all but moot. The heart disease risks of smoking occur at very low levels of consumption and the cancer risks depend more on how long you smoke than how much you smoke.

And vapers pollute the air around them. Far from just exhaling "harmless water vapor," as many e-cigarette ads proclaim, vapers pollute the air with nicotine, ultrafine particles, volatile organic compounds and even metals. That's why more than 100 cities, including New York City, and three states now sensibly include e-cigarettes in their clean indoor air laws.

Such a plan that would treat e-cigarettes like other tobacco products is moving through the Chicago City Council now; it deserves speedy enactment.

E-cigarettes are sold as a way to quit smoking. Twitter and other social media are filled with testimonials from people who claim anecdotally that e-cigarettes saved their lives by helping them quit cigarettes. And, no doubt, there are some people who believe that e-cigarettes helped them stop smoking. However, population-level statistics tell a different story. Studies that have followed smokers over time show that e-cigarette users are, on average, less likely to stop smoking. In practical terms, this means that for every person e-cigarettes helped to quit smoking, there is at least one person whom e-cigarettes kept from quitting.

It is telling that not a single e-cigarette company has submitted evidence to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration backing up claims that e-cigarettes help people quit smoking.

Indeed, when the FDA tried to regulate e-cigarettes as a drug (nicotine) delivery device, e-cigarette companies sued and blocked the FDA in court. When, eventually, the FDA tries to regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products (what the companies claimed in their first lawsuit), e-cigarette companies will sue again, which will delay any federal regulation for more years.

In the meantime, for the first time in 42 years, nicotine addiction advertising is back on television. Today's e-cigarette ads resemble cigarette ads from the 1950s and 1960s: sex, glamour and rebellion, with celebrities — even doctors — endorsing them.

Fueled by marketing tactics borrowed from cigarette-company playbooks of the past (which is not surprising since many e-cigarette companies are owned by tobacco companies) and the addition of kid-friendly flavors now banned in cigarettes, sales are doubling every year, with the current market estimated to reach $2 billion annually.

Not surprisingly, kids are responding to these ads. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that e-cigarette use among middle and high school kids doubled between 2011 and 2012. And they are not just "vaping," or smoking an e-cigarette. Eighty percent of these kids are smoking cigarettes at the same time, a double win for Big Tobacco.

On the eve of the release of a new surgeon general's report on the 50th anniversary of the first surgeon general's report linking tobacco with disease, we are hearing the same false statements extolling the virtues of the next generation of nicotine addiction products that we heard about cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products in times past. That's why Chicago — and communities everywhere — should ban the sale of e-cigarettes in kid-friendly places and, most important, include e-cigarettes in clean indoor air laws.

Stanton A. Glantz is a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and the American Legacy Foundation's distinguished professor of tobacco control.

Stanton A. Glantz's email address: glantz@medicine.ucsf.edu

 

[rothenbj]

“Having worked with the FDA, having encouraged them to take steps to protect individuals and children, they are usually an agency that leads from behind,”

I believe that is a good indication of where the FDA will go once they finally act against e cigs. This as well as the actiuvity in NYC and LA is just the fireworks before the grand finale. Hold on to your seats, it's going to be a rocky ride.

 

[Daisey Moonshine]

I agree. I remember when they banned flavored cigarettes 'because of the kids' and I'm concerned they will ban the candy and bakery flavored e-liquids as well.

The day may come when we will have to have to stockpile our pre-ban juice, or buck the law and become outlaws like the moonshiners in the old south.

 

[Berylanna]

I agree. I remember when they banned flavored cigarettes 'because of the kids' and I'm concerned they will ban the candy and bakery flavored e-liquids as well.

The day may come when we will have to have to stockpile our pre-ban juice, or buck the law and become outlaws like the moonshiners in the old south.

And while we are at it, we need to start a MAJOR campaign to ban ALL flavored alcoholic drinks and coffees to protect children.

 

[Jonibrasco]

If this was truly "for the children" they wouldnt be banning them. How many children have lost parents to lung cancer?

We are banning a device that could possibly save your parents life.. its for your own good...

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 2

 

[aikanae1]

And while we are at it, we need to start a MAJOR campaign to ban ALL flavored alcoholic drinks and coffees to protect children.

I think that's the best I've heard yet. Seriously.
I bet Pbsuardo would volunteer to do a spot on banning alcoholic flavors ...

 

[Daisey Moonshine]

I am against government regulation and prohibition of any alcohol or tobacco product man may produce. Free will is our God given right to choose whats best for ourselves, without judgement. If they want to make an apple flavored beer, or a whipped cream flavored vodka, that's perfectly ok with me.

 

[sonicdsl]

Lest anyone else misunderstand me, when I said this is not a partisan discussion, I mean it's not a discussion over which party did what to whom and when. This thread is to discuss the issue in the OP, period. Partisan politics can be debated in the Outside.

Thank you for your cooperation.

 

[Rymarski]

Opinion: The smoke behind e-cigarettes
And vapers pollute the air around them. Far from just exhaling "harmless water vapor," as many e-cigarette ads proclaim, vapers pollute the air with nicotine, ultrafine particles, volatile organic compounds and even metals.

My blood boils when I read this. Where are the studies or data that can back this statement?

 

[swoody]

Chicago 2014 - "Concealed carry firearms? Yes. E-cigarettes? Hells no!"

Obviously there's no long term studies done on the effects of second-hand bullets.

(As a note, I am in favor of legalizing both, but their idea of "safety" seems a bit odd.)