Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/06/san-francisco-e-cigarette-sale.html
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Man, Juul totally got smoked on that vote.
(drum roll please)
As a vape user, I’m a bit in the “well this is silly” column of thinking, especially given they aren’t banning cigarettes and other tobacco products. But meh… if it makes the citizens of the city happier, that’s great. It wouldn’t be that big a deal, you can always get them online, and I find most of the vape stores (at least where I live) have a certain, ah… less than reputable vibe to them.
P.S. Nice reverse mohawk, Xeni. But, whatevs… (great twitter thread on Gen X)
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I understand that position, but I also believe that if those other tobacco products had first become available circa 2014 and we were already documenting scores of known deaths from those products just five years later then the FDA would have banned them outright.
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As long as a sleazeball company like Juul loses (along with its sleazeball big tobacco shareholders), it’s a good outcome.
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I was actually a smoker using Juul as a gateway to quitting. Tried the patch; nope. Tried lolly-pops; nope. Juul was working since I could go from a 15 min commitment with a cig down to just a few seconds. Then those seconds got longer and longer apart. Now they ban Juul and I’m SO tempted to pick up a pack of American Spirits again. I still might. So there’s that. Ban all cigs and vaporizers, or don’t be disingenuous and only ban one.
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Does anyone know if this ban includes or will effect makers of dry herb vaporizers such as Pax*? Or is it limited to vaporizers from companies such as Juul with “juice” cartridges full of god knows what?
Because banning dry herb vaporizers in a state with legalized recreational marijuana would be fucking asinine. You get nothing from vaping an all-natural plant that you don’t get from smoking it, and you get rather a lot less tar since it doesn’t have to combust.
*not my vaporizer of choice, but probably the best known example
ETA: Never mind. According to Rolling Stone cannabis vapes will remain legal.
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Unfortunately Juul has also been an instrumental gateway for many kids starting. Over the last few years the advent of vaping has reversed a decades-long trend of declining tobacco use among teens. And frankly we still don’t have any conclusive evidence that vaping is less dangerous than cigarettes because there haven’t been any long-term studies into the health effects.
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This happens at the same time I see a very strong and pervasive campaign in sunny Barcelona. My guess is Juul was seeing this a mile ahead and looks to dump in Europe what it couldn’t sell in USA.
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Emerging evidence suggests the delivery system itself causes lung injuries unique to vaping. We still don’t understand the extent of the problem or even the precise mechanisms involved because we’re only beginning to study this in any meaningful way, but it does seem to be real. Remember that it took decades of study to realize the full extent of health problems caused by cigarettes.
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If you mean the liquid, that’s why I use dry herb vapes. The dry ground herbs are heated to a temperature hot enough to vaporize the oils in the ground leaves, but not hot enough to cause combustion the way smoking does.
If you mean the oven, that’s why I use a vaporizer with only ceramic parts from the oven to the mouthpiece. No metal for the vapor to come into contact with.
Basically, you get the activated oil in the herbs without the smoke you’d get from a glass pipe or a blunt. While I’m sure there is some effect on the lungs, I don’t really see how there could be any side-effects that you don’t already get from smoking it the way people have been doing since before recorded history. It’s hard to see how adding combusted tar and hotter temperatures to the vaporized oils in the herbs is in any way beneficial, and tar’s negative effects on the lungs are well established.
Those VAPI studies seem to be dealing with users of cartridge-based e-cigs, not dry herb vaporizers. Which makes me wonder why you can’t just dry herb vape tobacco. I mean, I’ve never tried it because I don’t want my herb vape tainted with tobacco, but at least then you’re not inhaling whatever god-awful chemicals e-cig companies are putting in their cartridges. Perhaps that wouldn’t help cigarette smokes though, since the nicotine level in unprocessed tobacco leaves is way lower than the artificially boosted levels in cigarettes and, I presume, e-cig cartridges.
My tobacco use is limited to the occasional cigar. Cigarettes taste and smell terrible to me. Granted the vapor from other people’s e-cigs isn’t anywhere near as offensive as cigarette smoke, but I still don’t want to be second-hand breathing whatever chemicals are in those cartridges.
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For the vapes that use liquids there’s also concerns about “vape tongue”, a condition that isn’t well understood yet.
Mind you i don’t post this to be a scaremonger but to generally point out that there’s a lot about vaping that aren’t well known. If anyone decides to do so they should have the ability and freedom to use vaping products but with the knowledge that we don’t know all of the risks yet.
Editing to add: Also probably what’s key here is just moderation. If someone is not constantly vaping they’re pretty likely to be better off vs someone that’s constantly doing it.
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I don’t understand why anyone would be willing to inhale the vapor from those cartridges from companies such as Juul without knowing what’s in them. I personally wouldn’t ban them, but I would gleefully get behind laws forcing companies to disclose each and every chemical they put in them. Of course I’d do that for most if not all perishable goods. The lack of transparency in commerce is a blight on civilization and I’d welcome some nice draconian laws with widespread enforcement and harsh penalties to wipe out the scourge of obscurity. Companies that hide behind trade secrets don’t deserve to exist, especially where health is concerned.
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My concern is even knowing 100% what’s in something there are still unknowns on long term use of vaping products. However I do hope that it can be enjoyed as safely as possible, the increased scrutiny toward this market may be a good thing in the long run though i don’t know why tobacco is flying under the radar throughout all of this BS still
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Have you ever seen Thank You for Smoking? If not, I highly recommended it.
Big Vape merits no more trust than Big Tobacco.
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It’s a damn fine movie, i think it should be seen as something all big corporate interests engage in not just tobacco companies but that movie is one of my faves.
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Yup. 100% agree.
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I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that inhaling superheated vaporized oils could have as-yet-unknown health consequences distinct from the largely known health consequences of smoking cigarettes. Certainly it’s clear that Vaping-associated pulmonary injury isn’t something the CDC had any good data for when the FDA first authorized the sale of e-cigarettes.
If history is any guide it could take decades before we have a comprehensive understanding of the health risks of vaping. For example, it could turn out that vaping is less likely to cause cancer but more likely to cause fatal lung injuries from the accumulated damage caused by exposure to microscopic beads of superheated oil.
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That’s a very good point I hadn’t thought of, and you’re quite right. Still think it’s a bit silly, though. 
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