How is vaping in public recieved in your country/area?

[Letitia]

Did anyone see article in Vaping360 Facebook about Swiss man arrested in Thailand for vaping in public, then charged with importation of e-cigs? Scary.

 

[AkiraFZ]

Did anyone see article in Vaping360 Facebook about Swiss man arrested in Thailand for vaping in public, then charged with importation of e-cigs? Scary.

The important part, I think, is that normally you see someone vaping in public even though it's illegal but that day was extra illegal. I wonder that was only applied to him or so many others.

 

[Letitia]

I think it may be arbitrary. Mood of individual officer or time to make an example as a reminder to everyone else.

 

[stols001]

Or, they could tell he was a foreigner, didn't know the laws, and decided to do An Example. It is sickening. But no more sickening than anyone else getting charged, fined, or imprisoned for vaping.

Anna

 

[Eskie]

Doing an example on a tourist is a huge mistake if you want to encourage tourism (don't know if they do or not). As we weren't present, there's no way to know how that arrest occurred. Was the tourist otherwise acting inappropriately to the officer (never a good idea, especially visiting a different country)? Were there language barriers that made the situation more difficult? Was there an offer to "prepay" the that the officer found insulting? Lots of moving parts even for a simple arrest, so while I fell horrible for the tourist, and think getting busted or vaping is nuts, I would like to know more before drawing a sweeping conclusion about their justice system.

 

[stols001]

Well, Eskie, I think that's fair, we don't know for certain.

Having touristed around various countries where security guards/police carried AK-47s (including Hopkins, though it wasn't AK-47s ) most security/police out on the streets aren't gunning to mow down or arrest tourists for no reason, so I see your point. That said, there are certain countries that seem to enjoy going after vaping with quite a bit of... vigor at this point.

Anna

 

[Chodi]

Doing an example on a tourist is a huge mistake if you want to encourage tourism (don't know if they do or not). As we weren't present, there's no way to know how that arrest occurred. Was the tourist otherwise acting inappropriately to the officer (never a good idea, especially visiting a different country)? Were there language barriers that made the situation more difficult? Was there an offer to "prepay" the that the officer found insulting? Lots of moving parts even for a simple arrest, so while I fell horrible for the tourist, and think getting busted or vaping is nuts, I would like to know more before drawing a sweeping conclusion about their justice system.

I live in Thailand and while the details of this particular case may not be known, that does not change the openly hostile nature against vapors here. I live it and have many friends here who also deal with the reality of this treatment as a criminal act. Most commonly the situation is used as an excuse for extortion into thousands of dollars (in local currency). I do not believe they care how this effects Western tourism. The focus here is on Asian tourism.

 

[AkiraFZ]

Doing an example on a tourist is a huge mistake if you want to encourage tourism (don't know if they do or not). As we weren't present, there's no way to know how that arrest occurred. Was the tourist otherwise acting inappropriately to the officer (never a good idea, especially visiting a different country)? Were there language barriers that made the situation more difficult? Was there an offer to "prepay" the that the officer found insulting? Lots of moving parts even for a simple arrest, so while I fell horrible for the tourist, and think getting busted or vaping is nuts, I would like to know more before drawing a sweeping conclusion about their justice system.

I totally agree with you.

 

[Eskie]

I live in Thailand and while the details of this particular case may not be known, that does not change the openly hostile nature against vapors here. I live it and have many friends here who also deal with the reality of this treatment as a criminal act. Most commonly the situation is used as an excuse for extortion into thousands of dollars (in local currency). I do not believe they care how this effects Western tourism. The focus here is on Asian tourism.

What level is that extortion at? Pretty hefty if it's for the arresting officer. I figured a "prepaid fine" of $50-100 might do the trick.

 

[stols001]

Any country like Thailand doing to some of its children what it's doing... Wouldn't shock me if vapers/tourists were extorted in that way. It's really a shame. I visited Thailand in the 80s with my family when we were moving from Aus to America again. It was a fascinating adventure as at that time Thailand was still fairly exotic and my mom always wanted to go places without maps or a dictionary. I remember one day we wandered all over the city in search of the "Royal Barges" which were at that time parked in some out of the way place... We wandered for several hours before running into a Thai monk who spoke English, took us to his home to eat lunch, and fell in love with my older brother. Monks can't touch women, but after lunch he wandered on ahead with my brother hugging him and joking about "keeping him." My mom was sort of terrified that this joke was only a "joke" and me and my sister ended up being tugged across tiny wooden walkways and barking (mostly) tied up dogs, while my mother was heckling us to keep the monk in sight while wondering where we were being "taken". LOL.

We did in fact go to exactly where the royal barges were kept, and it ended up being an awesome day... My mom still has pics of the Thai monk and my brother somewhere....

Everyone we met was super kind and very interested in our (either super curly, or super pale) hair, we kept getting it stroked on the bus.

It makes me sad after my fond memories of Thailand to see this kind of stuff happening, though I'm quite sure some of the bad stuff was also happening at that time....

Sometimes I think upon some of my travels and wonder how our family didn't all end up under dirt though. My mom's some kind of Valkirie Goddess or SOMETHING, she still travels like that and just got back from a month in Jerusalem.

Moving so much as a kid, I tend to get *anchored* pretty hard somewhere. Unless Tucson gets much hotter, I think we'll be sticking here for a bit more...

I really am sending the best vaping thoughts I can to these countries, it's a horrible practice when you must start bribing local officials. I'm glad that doesn't happen here... Oh, except for lobbying, etc. But not so much on the local level and I hope those of you vaping are taking the most sincere precautions.

Anna

 

[AkiraFZ]

haha
Thanks for sharing your childhood.

They are still nice people as a whole.
Many Japanese love to go to Thailand.

What is sad is that the system tend to be created by small number of people even though that is not their aggregated opinion.

 

[stols001]

I think that may be increasingly true for any government... Though in some cases, it's worse than others.

Anna

 

[Jack H]

I'm in China........nuff said.

 

[AkiraFZ]

I'm in China........nuff said.

I actually don't know much about the environment in China even though I buy most of the vape gear from them. Would you let us know?

 

[Chodi]

What level is that extortion at? Pretty hefty if it's for the arresting officer. I figured a "prepaid fine" of $50-100 might do the trick.

Twenty years ago you would have been right. Now for vaping you would be looking at numbers in excess of $1000 and it still might not resolve the problem. If there are more instances reported of their enforcing the 5 year jail penalty only absurd amounts of money might buy your way out.

 

[AkiraFZ]

Twenty years ago you would have been right. Now for vaping you would be looking at numbers in excess of $1000 and it still might not resolve the problem. If there are more instances reported of their enforcing the 5 year jail penalty only absurd amounts of money might buy your way out.

I was thinking just pay some money to the policeman at where you are found will do the trick. Do you mean that you are dealing with the police organization as a whole and pay the large amount of money? So this Swiss guy still have chance to get away from the jail penalty if they accept the big money.

 

[BOBOKOR]

I am from Japan. Not many people are vaping here in Japan but I start to find some vapers at smoking areas in Tokyo. Vape is treated in Japan, I think, as same as smoking cigarettes because vaper and smoke look the same from non-smokers or smokers. So we vape at designated smoking areas even though we think they are different.

As I don't travel outside of Japan so often, I would like to know how vape or vapers are treated in other countries. Is the vaping allowed at the non-smoking areas? Are there different rules applied for vaping and smoking?

Please let me know if this thread is irrelevant for this forum.

I am in South Korea. Vaping is treated same as cigarette. We can have and use vaping devices. We can sell or buy them on online shops but we cannot sell nicotine fluid on online shops.
We have 2tier system(Nic and NicFree).
You can buy nic freely but need some papers to sell it(This means you can not find legal sellers) However, nic in solid forms can be sold freely. Many uses solid nic to disolve to PG.

You need to vape only in smoking-zone. You need to prove your fluid is nic-free if you are caught vaping in no-smoking-zone. This will take weeks or just pay fine.

Most indoor and a few open place are no-smoking, just step 10m off doors, to vape. Or look where smoke arises.

 

[dangkhoa02106]

My colleague thought I used drug when they saw my e-cig at the first time.
Now it is better, they thought I used Shisha.
Vaping is still not popular in my country. The crowd will look like this when they saw my vapor.

 

[BOBOKOR]

I live in Thailand and while the details of this particular case may not be known, that does not change the openly hostile nature against vapors here. I live it and have many friends here who also deal with the reality of this treatment as a criminal act. Most commonly the situation is used as an excuse for extortion into thousands of dollars (in local currency). I do not believe they care how this effects Western tourism. The focus here is on Asian tourism.

I happened to go to Phuket last week. I was informed not to show vape-gear in public many times. I would not willingly visit Thailand again until I have to. I had to make Nic juice to gargle, to keep myself smoke free.

 

[Sakurai]

I live in Nara Japan, the suburbs of Osaka. I spoke with a senior citizen that was vaping 0 nic. Said he vapes to cut down from smoking ciggies same as me but I'm still on 3mg.
There is 1 dedicated vape shop in Nara. They can order whatever you need at a 3 time markup! I, like the OP order from the states or Fasttech.