jman and bluecat: The only point I was trying to make though was that chemicals are not treated equally; if something as dangerous as caffeine is treated casually because of it's acceptance (bluecat, your posts show just how accepted this is), a separate and more harsh regulation for a similar chemical should not exist.
Just as a recap: caffeine does transfer to bloodstream dermally, just like nicotine. Likewise, coffee is not the only source of caffeine; there are sprays, dissolving strips, soaps, mints, gum, patches, candy, soda, water, tea, coffee, espresso, chocolate, energy drinks, energy shots, etc. Hell, even though it's chemically worthless, there's even caffeinated ejuices out there.
LD50 of nicotine is approximately .5-1.0 mg/kg in humans; that equates out to a low dosage, but for 10mg to be fatal, you have to have a sensitivity to it or weigh less than 5-10kg (11-22lbs). A single cigarette contains 9mg of nicotine, a pack being 180mg of nicotine. Cigarette packs arent childproof, arent pet proof, and can be eaten and ingested by todlers/pets and are just as dangerous - again its the acceptance that allows for a casual handling of the smokes, vs the diluted nicotine juice in ejuice.
We vapers also have a "lucky accident" simply by the chemicals used. Our ejuice is a highly diluted suspension of nicotine. That nicotine is suspended in the very large, very sticky molecules of both PG and VG. This is why I've never gotten "nic sick" or "accidental overdosing" when I've spilled my ejuice on me. A simple, non-hurried, rinse off with water knocked everything off; thorough cleaning with soap and water completely eliminated the spill. There wasnt even a red mark to show skin irritation or itchy-ness that is always present when I used the patches. Yes, it's dangerous, and yes a child proof cap is strongly desired/recommended/should be required.
However, the thing that set you off on my comments was the simple fact that I dont agree with banning sales to minors. There are a number of reasons, largest being is law enforcement would need to be involved, which costs money and will further clog the courts with extra cases as inevitably - just like ciggarettes today, there will be people breaking those regulations.
Likewise, if I were put into the shoes of having a teenager I discovered was smoking, I'd rather force them over to
vaping to help ween them off and quit. Note: you only need to be 18 to buy smokes, but you want any of the cessation gear, you need to be 21 to purchase. I would like to not go down that rabbit hole of extra costs of enforcing these kinds of regulations, when it will only reinforce and help the kid to stay smoking, risking jailtime or a court record for his/her bad habits.
I'm not saying a kindergartner should be vaping, and I imagine, even if legal, cps would be getting involved at some point if that scenario arises. But a teenager 14, 15, 16, etc shouldnt be barred from it as an option to get off the smokes.
Likewise, I'm worried about a lot of the regulations that are self imposed that we talk about here. We seem to be using the tobacco bans and regs as a guideline or template. If we do that willingly, we've just conceded that vaping is just as bad as smoking. These regulations will only serve to reinforce that among the general populous, which means before we even have a chance of kicking the analogs and openly vaping and being accepted for it - we're going to look like we're just high tech smokers looking to kill ourselves slowly and everyone around us.
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calm......
