San Francisco considers banning the sale and manufacture of nicotine e-cigarettes

[Pensketch]

@Bunbain

Could be a small win for big tobacco.

Hmmm. Now that’s an interesting angle. May be a good time to look at campaign donors.

@GulliverFoyle

Nuking Joe the Camel and the like did have a material effect in the reduction of underage cigarette smokers, and thus cigarette addicts since most start at a young age.

Perhaps. I would counter that if it’s true most smokers start young, there are still enough smokers for there to exist a market where every convenience store, grocery store, and other stores in my city, have shelves filled with a panoply of smoking options involving tobacco, sold at crazy high prices, and sales are brisk. Dropping, perhaps, due to the rise of the e-cig and vaping, but still brisk.

I guess what I’m saying is, if getting rid of the advertising somehow kept them from smoking as kids, how many of them still managed to become addicted as adults? Enough to keep the wheels of that industry turning and churning.

@Mister44

I’d argue the Marlboro Man and other other ads sold more cigarettes to kids than Joe Camel. Kids do these things to appear older and more mature.

I agree with this. Plus actors smoking on TV shows and in movies created icons that people (not just kids) wanted to imitate. It was everywhere at one point. Hell, Fred Flintstone hawked cigs.

3 Flintstones Winston Cigarettes Commercials

Once that got eliminated, smoking was finally a thing of the past, never to be heard from again.

Oh. Wait. That’s not right.

---

In addition to not smoking, I don’t vape. It’s weird that I’m the side of… not so much “protecting” it, as not blindly hopping on the bandwagon to try and stomp it out.

I guess the idea that water vapor is somehow worse for your lungs than smoke just sounds absurd to me, when the thing I turn to when I’m congested is one of these:

and not one of these:

The thrust of attention seems to be focused on getting rid of the new kid on the block, and keeping the old one.

Why can’t the same laws that keep kids from smoking cigarettes work to keep them from vaping?

Or, why can’t the new laws designed to stop vaping be applied to cigarettes?

As long as nicotine and unknown or foreign particulates are entering your lungs, neither one is safe.

[Melz2]

@anon61221983

I’ve come to believe that if we used a different terminology, this whole debate would disappear in a puff of logic!

Agreed.

[Brainspore]

@Pensketch

If you outlaw vapes, only outlaws will vape.

Vaping will never make you look cool, “outlaw” or no.

[Pensketch]

You’re correct. I’m a long way from cool.

[Bobo]

Yep, kind of makes you wonder if they’re going to crack down on all the tech companies that produce “addictive” programs for people’s mobile apparati? (is that even plural of “apparatus”?)

Maybe then SF real estate prices will start to normalize…

[Tribune]

How about mandating a low maximum nicotine content instead?

(Most days I think homicidal robots targeting vaping executives would be a good idea)

[JohnEightThirty]

@Pensketch

As long as nicotine and unknown or foreign particulates are entering your lungs, neither one is safe.

Is nicotine bad for you? Cigarettes are certainly bad for you, but they famously contain hundreds of chemicals. Also, you set them on fire and burn the smoke.

I doubt vapes contain particulates; you’re thinking of smoke.

What, if anything, does “foreign” mean in this context?

The harmfulness of a substance is not affected by whether it is known or not.

You’re just freestyling, right?

[JohnEightThirty]

Are they regulating vapes more strictly than cigarettes? This guy is playing to the low-information voters, not to, say, the epidemiologists.

[Lexicat]

@Pensketch Whoops! I am bad at reading sarcasm online.

[GulliverFoyle]

These days all sarcasm should have an /s tag. It’s why I try to remember to place it even after the most obviously sarcastic comments I type, and in the case in point it wasn’t entirely obvious. Poe’s Law can snag any of us.

[Papasan]

“They’re in the business of getting people addicted, or keeping them addicted.”

The pusher man is like that.

[waterloonie]

You forgot the /s tag in that comment, methinks.

[G_r_ld_z_n_r]

“ban the shipment of those things to private residences in San Francisco.”

Oh hell no. I already own a flavor company. I have gallons of PG and flavor. I’m tempted to start adding nicotine products and selling ONLY to addresses San Francisco.

[themadpoet]

@JohnEightThirty

Is nicotine bad for you?

Yes. No question. Is it bad enough to ban? eh… it’s not the worst thing in cigarettes.

@JohnEightThirty

I doubt vapes contain particulates; you’re thinking of smoke.

Oh the market is so wild west - who knows with any reality - the fact is you can overcook the coil - and then you are at least getting metal into your lungs… I’m sure nickel isn’t good to inhale - I mean even then it’s nowhere near as bad as cigarettes.

@JohnEightThirty

What, if anything, does “foreign” mean in this context?

Foreign would mean things introduced from an external source that otherwise do not belong - this is an adult forum - don’t play word games to ‘win’ the argument - banning vaping (while allowing alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes) is stupid - but you don’t make your point trying to play ignorant about context and meaning.

[Brainspore]

@themadpoet

Is nicotine bad for you?

Yes. No question. Is it bad enough to ban? eh… it’s not the worst thing in cigarettes.

I think nicotine falls under the broad category of “bad enough for you that it probably wouldn’t be legal to sell if it was discovered today, but gets a pass due to long-standing social norms.”

[themadpoet]

@Brainspore

I think nicotine falls under the broad category of “bad enough for you that it probably wouldn’t be legal to sell if it was discovered today.”

That’s debatable - if you took the ‘smoking’ out of it, and that history - and just ‘found’ the chemical today - I think you’d see it marketed more like caffeine honestly.

The chemical by itself is addictive - but “While not cancer-causing or excessively harmful on its own, nicotine is heavily addictive and exposes people to the extremely harmful effects of tobacco dependency.”
(Nicotine: Facts, effects, and dependency)

It’s not the cancer causer - it has positive benefits - look I quit and stay away from it these days (fear of cancer stick relapse) - but (testimonial) I swear even taking enough nicotine to make me physically shake (and I was a pack and a half a day smoker so it took alot) - I was still wanting a cigarette - I personally believe that there are worse addictive things in a regular cig. than just ‘nicotine’ - and my health, lungs, breathing, and blood pressure went normal while still taking the drug in - through vapes - allowing me to taper the levels off until quit time.

I am more on the ‘Portugal’ side of keeping things legal though - I’d rather see efforts and money spent on rehab and help than fighting against the ‘sin’ of others.

[sdmikev]

@Papasan

The pusher man is like that.

[thechuck_2112]

@jlw

“They’re in the business of getting people addicted, or keeping them addicted.”

Philz Coffee ain’t in the business of selling a bunch of one-off cups of coffee, but I don’t see Dennis Herrera clamoring to shut them down.

[breadlord]

Moronic. Totally moronic.

[breadlord]

I want weed to be legal everywhere because I am so sick of the counter-culture elitism that seems to follow in its wake. If it’s normalised then maybe it’ll be possible to enjoy the odd bong without having to deal with thousands of “wake and bake, 420, I SMOKE THE SHATTER” arseholes.