New county regulations limit electronic cigarettes
February 23, 2011
By Staff
The King County Board of Health recently passed regulations to protect King County youth from electronic smoking devices and unregulated nicotine delivery devices.
The board voted unanimously to:
- restrict the sales of e-cigarettes or any other unapproved nicotine delivery devices only to people 18 and older;
- prohibit free or highly discounted electronic smoking devices or unapproved nicotine delivery products;
- prohibit the use of e-cigarette devices in places where smoking is prohibited by law.
Electronic smoking devices, commonly known as “e-cigarettes,” are battery-operated devices designed to look like and to be used in the same manner as conventional cigarettes.
E-cigarettes use cartridges to deliver vaporized nicotine, the same drug that’s in tobacco.
The FDA is investigating e-cigarettes, but the products are currently unregulated at the federal level.
E-cigarettes have a high appeal to youth. They are sold in convenience stores and mall kiosks and come in candy flavors, including chocolate, vanilla and mint.
The FDA has warned that e-cigarettes can increase nicotine addiction among young people and may lead youth to try conventional tobacco products.
As these products have become more widely available, public use has also increased.
E-cigarettes mimic the appearance of regular cigarettes because the user exhales a smoke-like vapor similar in appearance to the exhaled smoke from a cigarette.
Their use is virtually indistinguishable from the use of traditional tobacco products in public, which leads to confusion and prompts people to light and smoke traditional tobacco products.
Several other jurisdictions across the nation have created similar regulations related to e-cigarettes
March 3rd, 2011 at 4:51 pm
E-cigarettes having a high appeal to youth seems unsubstantiated by anything except supposition based on wishful thinking. Various e-cigarette forums have polls asking members’ age and in most cases, usage follows age.
What is more likely, a youth spending $20 – $120 for an e-cig kit or $5 to $12 for a pack of cigarettes?
Is it the wide variety of flavors that bring people to the conclusion that they appeal to youth? Were that the case then it would seem the coffee sections of grocery stores with many different flavors would be filled with the Youth of America but counter to ‘popular’ thinking, mostly the people you will find there are significantly older.
The statement that the use of an e-cig is virtually indistinguishable from smoking and possibly prompting someone looking for any excuse possible to smoke in an area they know they are not supposed to smoke is not really fair, germane or even accurate. Other than breathing out a vapor, which every New Yorker does while outside during the winter, seeing what is there to see instead of seeing what one wants to see makes it pretty obvious that even an e-cig made to look similar to a cigarette is not really a cigarette.
Using confusion over whether someone exhaling something like smoke is smoking or vaping to determine law is doing little except legally supporting ignorance.