We know it’ll happen eventually. The government is tuning a paranoid nose to the laws — or lack thereof — of selling electronic vapor cigarettes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention release its annual survey on the use of tobacco products by children and found E cig use tripled between 2013 and 2014.
Thus, lawmakers are looking to send E cigs the way of marijuana, calling them a “gateway to smoking,” according to
Aljazeera America, even though the CDC report proposed some young people are using E cigs for the same reason as many adults — to quit smoking all together.
So far only three states ban E cigs along the same lines as cigarette smoking — can’t do it indoors, must be 20 feet from building, etc., but many states are starting to propose regulations to enforce child resistant packaging, vapor-selling licenses, and of course taxes.
The fact is, E cigs are just safer than traditional cigarettes. Cigarettes start fires that kill over 1,000 people a year and contain 69 cancer-linked chemicals. E cigs take away the danger of smoking while leaving the indulgence and image most people enjoy about vaping.
It is reasonable that lawmakers want to know what is put in E cigs for sale. There’s currently no real requirements for what can and can’t go in the liquids used to create the vapor, and no studies on whether the stuff used can be harmful or not.
The E cigs for sale today tend to contain a mixture of nicotine, water, sugar alcohol, and propylene glycol, an artificial concoction that uses water to create fog in stage shows. But that’s about it for standards; E liquid can have just about anything else in it if the manufacturer decides to add it.
Luckily, most manufacturers don’t want to kill their customers.
And no one wants to be killed either. But the more regulations stack up, the harder it will be for small businesses who make their own E cigs for sale to locals to stay afloat. Legislation won’t be limited to the substance being sold; it’ll also cover the facilities where it’s made and the security thereof. Single shop owners with their own labs won’t be able to afford retinal scans or 24 hour video surveillance.
Luckily, since the general consensus seems to see E cigs as the lesser of two evils, lawmakers and the public will probably make sure not to quash the E cig business. No one wants to outlaw the most effective method to keep smokers from smoking.
