General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do smoking bans apply to e-cigarettes? [View all]iemitsu
(3,891 posts)The United States is notorious for its lax regulation of food and drug safety. We have rules but no one to enforce them. The EPA, that you referenced earlier, is not any better at protecting our health than the FDA. Our government protects Monsanto's Frankenfoods from being labeled as GM products and refuses to let specific beef ranchers test all their cattle for spongiform encephalitis, because then other ranchers, who don't want to test all their cattle, will seem suspect to the consumer. In Utah it is illegal to film the conditions in a henhouse (chicken ranch). The US government does little to protect its citizens from the abuses of corporations, abuses that are linked to wild fluctuations in weather patterns, to economic collapse, to destabilizing other countries or regions, and to marketing dangerous consumer products. A government agency's stamp of approval is little more than that, a stamp of approval.
While I was never a cigarette smoker, I was around those who smoked all the time. I don't like the smell of cigarettes, or pulp mills, or gasoline, or cooking cabbage but I have been subjected to their smells throughout my life. My wife smoked, when we were kids and later when we were married. One day, 35 years ago, she quit (got some of that gum, chewed half a piece, and never smoked again).
I don't miss the cigarette smoke in my house or in my car and I was happy when cigarettes were banned from restaurants and other public places but it is unreasonable for any of us to believe we can or should control everything about our environments.
Having a clean and healthy environment to live in is as important to me as it clearly is to you but banning vaporizers will not result in clean air for you to breathe.
The pollution you worry about is statically insignificant, especially when compared to pollutants introduced, into the atmosphere, by automobiles and industry. Someone up-thread mentioned the ongoing radio-active pollutants escaping from the Fukushima Daiichi reactors. This is a much more pressing health issue than vaporizers, especially if you live in the Pacific Northwest. The waters here are already contaminated from the ongoing Fukushima disaster and from leaking storage tanks on the Handford reservation. This is what you should use your energy protesting. It is a significant health risk. Carbon emissions are a significant concern too. You should demand our government address the levels of this poisonous addition to our air.
Insisting that individuals, who use vaporizers, be demonized and blamed for the poor quality of our air when other factors are largely responsible, is unfair and won't help to achieve your goal (of clean air).
Your commitment to clean air is laudable and I don't intend to ask you to give it up, but use your energy where it might make a difference. Attack the big polluters not individuals, who use vaporizers. Once you have convinced the government and its corporate masters to reduce or eliminate the pollutants they spew into the air and water then you can target smaller concerns.