Tacoma-Pierce County health official wants to ban electronic cigarettes in

[Traver]

Health Department chief Dr. Anthony Chen told me the regulations are intended to further protect the public from the harmful effects of nicotine and other chemicals associated with the use of e-cigarettes or tobacco.

Tacoma-Pierce County health official wants to ban electronic cigarettes in public places | Political Buzz

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[Demarko]

Tacoma-Pierce County health official wants to ban electronic cigarettes in public places | Political Buzz

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I commented. I'll probably take the drive down there on the 16th to the public meeting - will have to check my schedule and what all is going on but I think I should be able to make it.

 

[Traver]

I commented. I'll probably take the drive down there on the 16th to the public meeting - will have to check my schedule and what all is going on but I think I should be able to make it.

That would be the best thing to do.

 

[Demarko]

There's apparently a form: "To provide written feedback on the proposed regulations, please fill out the public input form which can be found here." but it's not actually a link. Trying to find it if someone could help - would be nice to have some letters written from some of the better-spoken-than-me members here (and people from out of state who may be able to help!)

 

[rothenbj]

Commented, but is anyone else as tired of the same one liners that they roll out EVERY time one of these proposals surface.

 

[Placebo Effect]

I commented. I'll probably take the drive down there on the 16th to the public meeting - will have to check my schedule and what all is going on but I think I should be able to make it.

Please, please, please do. And definitely get in touch with the young female vendor quoted in the above article, whose contact info can be found here -- Contact Us - The Vaporium

 

[yvilla]

There's apparently a form: "To provide written feedback on the proposed regulations, please fill out the public input form which can be found here." but it's not actually a link. Trying to find it if someone could help - would be nice to have some letters written from some of the better-spoken-than-me members here (and people from out of state who may be able to help!)

Demarko, the feedback link is alive on the Tacoma-Pierce County website version of the news about the proposals (the news article linked to above is only a copy of that). Look at it here: Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department > Tobacco Regulations

Since you never know who actually gets to see submissions from such web-based forms, however, a better alternative would be to individually call or write all the Board of Health members. The following list was compiled by Placebo Effect (a CASAA board member):

Tacoma-Pierce County Board of Health

Richard Muri (currently opposes banning e-cigarettes indoors)
(253) 798-3308 PHONE
(253) 798-7509 FAX
.....muri@co.pierce.wa.us (the ECF censor removed first part of email address - is a four letter nickname for Richard, then a dot before the muri)

Stan Flemming (currently opposes banning e-cigarettes indoors)
(253) 564-6675 PHONE
stanflemming@hotmail.com

Jake Fey (serves on local advisory board of American Heart Association)
(253) 594 – 7848 PHONE
(253) 927 – 1068 PHONE
(253) 383 – 5908 PHONE
(253) 591 – 5123 FAX
Jake.Fey@cityoftacoma.org

Pat Johnson (Mayor of City of Buckley)
(360) 829 – 1921 PHONE
(360) 829 – 2629 FAX
pjohnson@cityofbuckley.com

Pat McCarthy (Pierce County Executive)
(253) 798-6602 PHONE
(253) 798-6628 FAX
pmccart@co.pierce.wa.us

Marilyn Strickland
(253) 594 - 7848 PHONE
(253) 396 – 0265 PHONE
(253) 591-5123 FAX
marilyn.strickland@cityoftacoma.org

Rebecca Sullivan, MD
(253) 848 - 6661 PHONE
(253) 841 – 1483 PHONE
(253) 798 - 7627 FAX
annreid42@lycos.com / rsullivan@wa.net

Rick Talbert
(253) 314 – 3514 PHONE
(253) 471 – 2581 PHONE
info@ricktalbert.com

Ron Lucas (Alternate) (Mayor, Town of Steilacoom)
(253) 581 – 1912 PHONE
(253) 582 – 0651 FAX
rjlucas@comcast.net

Victoria Woodards (Alternate, rep. of Tacoma City Council, At-Large position 6)
(253) 591 – 5100 PHONE
(253) 473 – 1449 PHONE
(253) 591 – 5123 FAX
Victoria.Woodards@cityoftacoma.org

 

[Demarko]

Please, please, please do. And definitely get in touch with the young female vendor quoted in the above article, whose contact info can be found here -- Contact Us - The Vaporium

I love that her site has lots of links to ECF and Casaa! I've sent a contact to her by her form, if I don't hear from her in the next day or so I'll call down. Have you also been in touch with her?

Before may 16th I may have to make a drive down - if for no other reason than to try out a few new flavors of ejuice I haven't tried yet.

Thank you for compiling the list of people to contact. Should I write them, as well as go down there personally on the 16th?

 

[yvilla]

Should I write them, as well as go down there personally on the 16th?

Yes, write. Yes, call. Yes, go.

Seriously, whatever you can do would be great, but all three things are needed.

 

[Demarko]

Yes, write. Yes, call. Yes, go.

Seriously, whatever you can do would be great, but all three things are needed.

Whenever I write one of these, I get fairly emotionally attached, and therefore tend to ramble. I'll draft something up but it might take me a couple of days. And yes, that's exactly what I'll do. I'll for sure call at LEAST the ones opposing, and show them support. (I might try to yell at the others, just kidding!)

 

[Placebo Effect]

I love that her site has lots of links to ECF and Casaa! I've sent a contact to her by her form, if I don't hear from her in the next day or so I'll call down. Have you also been in touch with her?

Before may 16th I may have to make a drive down - if for no other reason than to try out a few new flavors of eJuice I haven't tried yet.

Thank you for compiling the list of people to contact. Should I write them, as well as go down there personally on the 16th?

I spoke to her today. She was very excited about the prospect of defeating this. One of the Councilmembers that is against banning e-cigs indoors is also an anti-smoking advocate, and she is working to get a newspaper article done on the subject of her and the Councilman visiting a local bar and vaping 0 mg e-cigs. That way he can return to Council and not only note that the e-cig didn't kill him, but that no one at the bar (where she vapes nightly as sort of an advertisement for her store) didn't light up a cigarette in response.

I would definitely write and/or make phone calls.

 

[Demarko]

I spoke to her today. She was very excited about the prospect of defeating this. One of the Councilmembers that is against banning e-cigs indoors is also an anti-smoking advocate, and she is working to get a newspaper article done on the subject of her and the Councilman visiting a local bar and vaping 0 mg e-cigs. That way he can return to Council and not only note that the e-cig didn't kill him, but that no one at the bar (where she vapes nightly as sort of an advertisement for her store) didn't light up a cigarette in response.

I would definitely write and/or make phone calls.

I plan to do both, once I trust myself not to rant. I can't wait to see this newspaper article, it should be interesting! I'm glad to see, also, that the particular council-member is anti-smoking. That somehow adds some weight to what he says, and I'm sure other anti-smoking council-members have worked with him in the past and will listen to him.

 

[Placebo Effect]

Apply cigarette ban to vaping? | Government / Politics - The News Tribune

Fellow board member Pat McCarthy, the Pierce County executive, disagrees.

“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck,” she said. “To me they look like cigarettes.”

The Health Department has been working for years to eradicate smoking in Pierce County, she added.

“This goes in the opposite direction. We shouldn’t be supporting something that simulates smoking.”

Sigh

 

[cmdryker]

There's 5 times more nicotine in eggplant or tomatoes then there is in second hand vapor.

 

[Demarko]

I like the way discussions work on this article much better. A couple of negative responses to Elaine but - oddly - both were about smoking and had nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

 

[Placebo Effect]

Inside Opinion - » Health board in new territory with vaping ban The News Tribune Blogs, Tacoma, WA

Making public policy on the basis of unknown health risks is a tricky – and usually inadvisable – business. More compelling is the concern about losing ground in the fight against smoking.

The state smoking ban has helped dramatically reduce smoking rates. In 2000, about 35 percent of Pierce County adults smoked. In 2009, the number dropped to an all-time low of 17 percent.

. . .

Fake smokes, many of which look almost indistinguishable from real cigarettes, keep smoking in the public eye and help normalize the act of lighting up.

But then again, so do episodes of “Mad Men.”

The Board of Health will have to decide if the risk of eroding beneficial social norms outweighs the intrusion on personal behavior. At the outset, the scale is tipped in favor of the least restrictive approach.

Kudos to editorial writer Kim Bradford

 

[Demarko]

Inside Opinion - » Health board in new territory with vaping ban The News Tribune Blogs, Tacoma, WA



Kudos to editorial writer Kim Bradford

Interesting, but I can't tell if she's arguing that they have a case about 'social norms' or not.

 

[Placebo Effect]

Interesting, but I can't tell if she's arguing that they have a case about 'social norms' or not.

I think she's saying that while the argument about social norms has some merit, the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that e-cigarettes harm bystanders firmly shifts the burden of proving a substantial harm to the people of Tacoma - Pierce County to those who favor the ordinance.

We can disagree with her premise on the social norms point, but to those people who sadly believe that e-cigs "promote" smoking, an editorial like this can connect with them in a way that something by a harm reduction advocate would not.

 

[Placebo Effect]

The Tacoma-Pierce County Board of Health misled the public back in March in a couple ways.

More Teens Using Tobacco Alternatives, Survey Finds - Gig Harbor, WA Patch

Bridget Vandeventer, spokeswoman at the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, said it’s good news that there wasn’t a significant increase in student smoking, as young adults are making better choices.

. . .

But cigarettes aside, another potential problem that the health department wants people to know about is the increase in “alternative” tobacco, and nicotine products, which are seemingly targeted at youth characteristics such as their candy flavor.

“These products, such as e-cigarettes, e-hookahs and flavored tobacco, pose the same health risks as cigarettes, and may serve as a dangerous gateway for youth into an ongoing tobacco addiction,” Vandeventer said. “This issue should not be ignored.”

E-cigarettes were not even on the survey that this article was reporting on, and I don't even know what an e-hookah is.

I called the spokesperson quoted in the article. She incorrectly asserted that e-cigarettes were on the survey, when in fact they weren't. She then said that it was the health department's position that "these products pose similar risks as smoking." I asked her why her article says "same risks" and she accused me of playing semantics.

She said she'd pass along my number to someone within the Health Department.

I later spoke to a person on the Board of Health who stated that she would e-mail the author to have "same risks" at least changed to "similar risks." The change was never made.

And let's not forget this bit from their recent press release

Currently, e-cigarettes are unregulated in the United States. They contain varying levels of nicotine and other known carcinogens and toxic chemicals. The FDA recently announced that it intends to regulate e-cigarettes as a tobacco product and not an approved cessation aid.

is it playing semantics to say that this statement implicates nicotine as a carcinogen? I have e-mailed Dr. Chen and asked him to edit that press release for accuracy.

 

[Traver]

There's 5 times more nicotine in eggplant or tomatoes then there is in second hand vapor.

Is that in the plant or the fruit. Just asking.