Why e-cigarette users should not be relegated to the smoking zone

[Vocalek]

Vineis P, et al. Environmental tobacco smoke and risk of respiratory cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in former smokers and never smokers in the EPIC prospective study. BMJ. 2005 February 5; 330(7486): 277.

Conclusions This large prospective study, in which the smoking status was supported by cotinine measurements, confirms that environmental tobacco smoke is a risk factor for lung cancer and other respiratory diseases, particularly in ex-smokers.

Environmental tobacco smoke and risk of respiratory cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in former smokers and never smokers in the EPIC prospective study


I wonder if this study would provide some grounds for e-cigarette users who have been caught up in laws or rules that send them to the smoking area to protest on the grounds that their health is being endangered.

 

[kookycole]

This would be an interesting argument to make for a place that still has an indoor smoking area. However, they don't have indoor smoking in public where I live, and if you were smoking/vaping outside, you could move away from where the smokers were to limit exposure. Still, a good argument for places that haven't enacted smoking bans (are there any of those left?)

 

[JustJulie]

I tend to agree with Kookycole. For the most part, when we're talking about smoking areas, it's usually outside, often somewhere in an alley behind a dumpster.

Personally, I think the dangers of second-hand smoke have been exaggerated, although I freely admit that reasonable minds can disagree on the issue of how dangerous it is. But anyone who wants to argue that second-hand smoke outdoors is a health hazard probably has a screw loose . . . and that's where the smokers have been relegated to, by and large.

The way I choose to address this issue is by saying, "IF you believe that second-hand smoke is so deadly, then why would you put non-smoking vapers in the smoking areas?"

To be blunt, the ANTZ believe that second-hand smoke is dangerous--indoors as well as outdoors--so I don't feel the need to present "evidence" to that effect. They accept it as fact and need no persuasion on that particular point.

 

[sqirl1]

the problem is ANTZ logic says smoking and vaping are just as bad and part of the reason why second had smoke is bad is because of the nicotine. The unfortunate fact is, these people do not consider vapers to be non-smokers, they just see vaping as "an alternative way to smoke" and their mentality is "still addicted, should still carry the stigma, period." of course their distorted view is far from the reality, and theres no way in hell e-cigarette vapor could hurt any bystanders, but do you think they care? they just want everybody to treat vapers the way they treat smokers because they honestly really don't care that much about the people who smoke right now, they just want to make an example out of them, along with using the success stories of ex-smokers-turned-antz to further ingrain the rhetoric of "they're all perfectly capable of quitting (all aspects of the habbit) so nobody should have any sympathy for them" into society. They believe that by doing this, they'll prevent anybody from ever starting in the first place because they figure the more smokers are stigmatized the less youth will want to do it. Of course this doesn't ACTUALLY work, they don't want it to because tax revenue and drug industry profits would plummet if it did. Eventually they'll deliver the coup de grace to the tobacco industry but only after they get their propaganda machine solidified enough to tax sugar by the pound and have fat people be the new smokers. But in spite of not working the way they supposedly want it to, it gets the politicians re-elected and the people in Tobacco Control a paycheck, which in all reality is all they give a flying **** about. So making this argument won't work for anything because as far as the people who make the rules are concerned, vapers are just smokers trying to get around smoking bans and they see it as their job to close the loophole. they don't CARE about the facts, they care about the votes.

 

[Vocalek]

I don't mean to be contrary here, but the folks we are trying to convince in these cases are the lawmakers, not the employees of the ANTZ organizations. The ANTZ organizations are just as likely to claim that hanging out in a cloud of smoke won't harm e-cigarette users because they already damaged their lungs with smoke.

This just provides a reference we can use in our communications with city council members, representatives, and senators, who have been working from the script disseminated by the Americans for Nonsmokers Rights to treat use of an e-cigarette exactly the same as smoking. http://www.no-smoke.org/pdf/modelordinance.pdf

 

[JustJulie]

I don't mean to be contrary here, but the folks we are trying to convince in these cases are the lawmakers, not the employees of the ANTZ organizations. The ANTZ organizations are just as likely to claim that hanging out in a cloud of smoke won't harm e-cigarette users because they already damaged their lungs with smoke.

I don't think you're being "contrary," Elaine. But I can't help but feel it's a potentially hypocritical argument for us to make when we're dealing with outside exposure, which is what we're dealing with the vast majority of the time. You simply cannot convince me that I'm in any particular danger being near a smoker outdoors, and it's not an argument I feel at all comfortable making even if it might score points with lawmakers.

Don't get me wrong--I do have some sympathy for this approach. When I was practicing law, the general rule of thumb was to make every single argument you could make. Throw enough on the wall, and something might stick. But here, we're not simply advocates trying to persuade . . . we're advocates for the truth. And in connection with outdoor smoking, I think the truth is that it's not particularly dangerous to bystanders (if it's dangerous at all).

I doubt the ANTZ organizations would argue that being around smokers isn't dangerous for vapers because we used to be smokers and have already ruined our health . . . they have spent far too much time, money, and effort telling people how quitting will immediately start improving your health and how even a few whiffs of second-hand smoke can kill you.

 

[sherid]

By 100 times, I would rather be aligned with smokers than with anti-smokers. The harm that the anti-smokers have done to society and to science is deplorable.