Next on the Toronto Board of Health’s hit list: e-cigarettes
These are the wild-west days of e-cigarettes. For the time being, there are no real social or legal conventions to govern where a person can use them. Toronto restaurant and bar patrons are learning to cope with the alarming sight of people blowing smoke indoors with impunity. (In reality, the stuff that comes out of e-cigs isn’t smoke at all; it’s a vapour of propylene glycol and glycerin.)
Except now it seems like the vapoury good times are coming to an end: according to the Sun, the Toronto Board of Health is preparing to release a report on e-cigarettes this spring.
While there’s no guarantee the board will recommend a full or partial ban on indoor e-cigarette use, there’s a good chance that’s what will end up happening. Just last month, the board released a report asking the city to study banning indoor use of shisha at Toronto’s hookah bars. City council would have final say over whether either ban were to be enacted.
It’s not hard to imagine the rationale for an e-cigarette ban. The long-term health effects of using the things haven’t been firmly established. They’re still regarded with trepidation by Health Canada, which doesn’t allow them to be sold in Canada if they contain nicotine—though nicotine-free products are legal, for the time being.
Any e-cig users who don’t want to find themselves banished, like their tobacco-incinerating brethren, had better start lobbying now.
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/city/toronto-board-of-heath-e-cigarette/&title=Next on the Toronto Board of Health’s hit list: e-cigarettes&picture=https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/e-cigarette-toronto-board-of-health-624x395.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_269310" align="alignnone" width="656"] (Image: Michael Dorausch)[/caption]
These are the wild-west days of e-cigarettes. For the time being, there are no real social or legal conventions to govern where a person can use them. Toronto restaurant and bar patrons are learning to cope with the alarming sight of people blowing smoke indoors with impunity. (In reality, the stuff that comes out of e-cigs isn't smoke at all; it's a vapour of propylene glycol and glycerin.)
Except now it seems like the vapoury good times are coming to an end: according to the Sun, the Toronto Board of Health is preparing to release a report on e-cigarettes this spring.
While there's no guarantee the board will recommend a full or partial ban on indoor e-cigarette use, there's a good chance that's what will end up happening. Just last month, the board released a report asking the city to study banning indoor use of shisha at Toronto's hookah bars. City council would have final say over whether either ban were to be enacted.
It's not hard to imagine the rationale for an e-cigarette ban. The long-term health effects of using the things haven't been firmly established. They're still regarded with trepidation by Health Canada, which doesn't allow them to be sold in Canada if they contain nicotine—though nicotine-free products are legal, for the time being.
Any e-cig users who don't want to find themselves banished, like their tobacco-incinerating brethren, had better start lobbying now.){kind=link}
I’m a tobacco smoker who switched to e-cigarettes because I wanted to have a safer way to use nicotine. Electronic cigarettes have 3 known ingredients: nicotine, propylene glycol and glycerin, (reputable online retailers like http://www.southbeachsmoke.com/e-liquids/ will list the ingredients of their e-liquid) and no ingredients have been found to cause cancer. I feel healthier since I made the switch–no more chronic cough. People like the activity of smoking but don’t want the over 4000 questionable and cancer causing ingredients in tobacco cigarettes, so I’m on the fence about the e-cigarette ban. There’s no secondhand smoke or known harmful health effects, so why ban?
Public health policy should be Evidence Based and that evidence should be based on Sound Science. Indoor vaping bans are not based on science, they are a knee-jerk reaction to the misinformation spread by the media, who don’t care about facts, only about selling more ads.
The Facts are that the vapour released by e-cigarettes are essentially harmless to bystanders. Just because you think it looks like tobacco smoke, doesn’t mean it is.
Banning their use indoors provides no benefit to public health, and in fact creates the appearance that e-cigarettes are just as bad as tobacco cigarettes. This will reduce the number of smokers that would potentially consider switching to a much safer alternative.
“It’s not hard to imagine the rationale for an e-cigarette ban.”
You mean the stated rationale or the actual rationale? The actual rationale is that governments are as addicted to tobacco tax revenue as any smoker is to smoking. For all their dishonest lip service about safeguarding public health, the last thing they would ever want is for millions of people to stop buying tobacco all at one.
There is absolutely no real-world, evidence-based rationale for banning the use of e-cigs anywhere, because there’s no evidence whatsoever that using them poses any material threat to anyone.
It’s baffling that a revolutionary product, deemed by many qualified professionals to be beneficial to so many people is being condemned at all. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson “Fear always springs from ignorance.” Canadians need to stand up for their rights to make well informed decisions for themselves. Don’t leave it to others to decide for you.
I recently started vaping too and within 3 weeks i am completely off cigarettes I agree with alot of you that they are not harmful but something all vapers should remember is that we are still addicted to nicotine. Do we want this new practice to look socially acceptable to the next generation? I have a newborn daughter and i can guarantee that she will not see me vape as she gets older i do not want here thinking “If daddy can do it so can i” We have to respect the progress we have made in the last twenty years or so that one day nicotine addiction will be a thing of the past.
Once again the political system does not seem to be telling you the whole story. E-cigs have been around a lot longer that we think, yet they have be subject to so much controversy. And for what? Because we dont know what its effects might be? Ecigs have been around long enough for studies to take place, and still to this day, ecigs seem to have a pretty good rap sheet. The people in public health need to work on something that is going to help the public, and not put more money in their greedy pockets. Why not pursue a ban on actual cigarettes, which have a proven mortality rate. I guess one needs to read between the lines. Cigarettes generate billions in tax revenue. Of course they would rather have you smoke the real stuff, there is too much money at stake.
Hey BOH – we are not stupid. I can see right this, and its smells bad.