NJ lawmakers may regulate e-cigarette
Monday, December 7th, 2009
New Jersey lawmakers are considering legislation to regulate the sale of electronic cigarettes.
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E-cigarettes use a metal tube with a battery to heat up a nicotine solution and users breath the vapor. Assemblywoman Connie Wagner is sponsoring a bill that would extend the ban on the sale of tobacco products to anyone under 19 to include e-cigarettes.
She also wants their use banned in indoor public places.
Wagner: We who have accustomed to having a smoke free environment that when we go into an enclosed mall or a place of employment that we not be exposed to potentially harmful vapors that occur when it's exhaled.
The e-cigarette measure has been approved by the Assembly's Health Committee and could go to the full Assembly for a vote before the end of this legislative session.
I think that if regulated it should only be for restricting its use to minors, but it should be each states decision to do so. I suggest that if you really want to quite smoking you could try electronic cigarettes like at http://PowerSmoking.com/rep91208 since they mainly only contain nicotine to satisfy your cravings without the carcinogens and produce a very fine vapor that only looks like smoke.
C. Fein points out a gaping flaw in our system. We as a country have traded liberty for "security" in our government, giving them the authority to ban new and innovative products until they have been "proven safe", which essentially means bribing the FDA with millions of dollars.
It is like the police arresting everyone and only releasing those who can prove their innocence. This overreaching authority of government to ban new products under the notion that they have been "proven safe" only reveals that those in power think it possible to protect us all from harm. It would make more sense to place the burden of proof of harm on the FDA, rather than having them stand in the doorway to approval with their hands out.
We have a product with fantastic potential to eliminate the use of tobacco (like many other individuals, it has been the only product that has worked for me), and the government wishes to ban it under the absurd notions that A) It is attractive to children and B) It has not been "proven safe". I challenge the FDA and politicians looking to ban this product to prove that a silly-looking device that costs upwards of $100 is somehow "attractive to children" and that is in fact, more dangerous than the currently legal tobacco cigarettes.
I have no qualms about banning the sale of these products to minors. Through the E-cigarette Association, the vendors of these products have already begun the necessary self-regulations to prevent the sale to minors, but please do not treat the entire citizenry as though only elected officials are adults.
In NJ there are far greater problems for our government to be dealing with.
C. Fein – Nice Point! I believe law makers, or those with influence, should remember that have a responsibility to make informed decisions as they are civil servants, not kings/queens! Obviously Wagner did not research the product nor did she make an informed decision…your tax dollars at work
Doesn't Wagner need proof that those vapors are in fact harmful before she interferes with someone's right to use a legal product?
Furthermore, as someone who vapes and does not smoke tobacco (and has not smoked tobacco in nearly 8 months, thanks to my e-cigarette), I don't particularly want to be shoved outside to a smoking area to breathe stinking, tar-filled tobacco smoke! My vapor doesn't have a smell, and it will be very difficult to find anything harmful in it. There might be trace amounts of nicotine, or might not. There will be the fog from propylene glycol, which is already used in medical inhalers and fog machines. There will be vaporized food flavorings. No combustion-created chemicals, no tar.
The steam over a boiling tea kettle looks like smoke. That doesn't mean it should be prohibited in public places.