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San Francisco Becomes First U.S. City to Pass an E-Cigarette Ban

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Re: San Francisco Becomes First U.S. City to Pass an E-Cigarette Ban

#81

Post by ladberg »

JamesBarney wrote: post #64
munk-a wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am happy that's worked out for you - and e-cigs are definitely less dangerous than conventional cigarettes, but the adoption rate of smoking among younger folks has spiked since flavoured e-cigs were introduced. I really want vapes to be available as an alternative to conventional smoking but the companies pushing them now are addicting a lot of new users, if the market participants were more responsible these devi…

There has been an increase in vaping, but the health benefits of vaping instead of smoking are so large that they swamp the ill health effects from increased vaping unless you get 20 new vapers for each person who quits smoking. In this debate people really underestimate how bad smoking is for you. UK NHS estimates e-cigarettes about 95% less damaging than smoking. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/vaping-qui…

Anecdotally, I (as a college student) know more than 20x the number of people who vape than people who smoke. Smoking is bad, but vaping is becoming incredibly mainstream with young people to the point where it's a bigger health risk.

Re: San Francisco Becomes First U.S. City to Pass an E-Cigarette Ban

#82

Post by joshanderson »

mattoxic wrote: post #34

I hate cigarettes, I hate the litter, the smell, and the smokers' belief that they have the divine right to pollute my airspace. I also hate the taxes I spend on keeping them in hospital - but. E cigarettes don't cause litter, the smoke is far less offensive. If people are going to smoke they will smoke. SF would be far better off banning actual cigarettes.

Ecigs cause tons of litter from the refill cartridges and from the batteries. Ecigs are much worse of a pollution problem than actual cigarettes.

Re: San Francisco Becomes First U.S. City to Pass an E-Cigarette Ban

#84

Post by mullingitover »

eweise wrote: post #58
mullingitover wrote: post #26

Let's work through the logic here: San Francisco assumes that the existing controls on the purchase of tobacco products by minors are a failure. They must act. San Francisco's reaction to this is to ban all tobacco products from the city, for the children. This is perfectly rational. But wait, no, their reaction is to ban the harm reduction option and keep the worst tobacco product known to be the most addictive and…

You lumped all tobacco products together when really there is a specific problem with kids purchasing e-cigarettes. If cigarette rates were spiking in the same manner then maybe they would need further restrictions.

The point still stands. It's like if you knew liquor stores would just break the law and sell alcohol to anyone who could see over the counter, and you won't do anything to stop them...instead your response is to ban only beer.

The (wholly unfounded by extant evidence)theory is that substantial numbers of teens who vape are going to move on to the more harmful cigarettes, and so e-cigarettes should be discouraged. Great. However, if that's your theory, step one should be ban regular cigarettes.

Re: San Francisco Becomes First U.S. City to Pass an E-Cigarette Ban

#85

Post by baby »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #62
pigscantfly wrote: post #7

This is perverse given that tobacco cigarettes are still widely available. I can't remember the last time I was actually satisfied with a decision from the Board of Supervisors.

How are they sold? In Australia they have the gory death warnings, are sold in cabinets with no logos (just a plain font list of brand names) and are ridiculously expensive $40 for 20. Cigars might be an exception(?)

The gory death warnings are the most useless counter measure I’ve seen. We have them all over in France and they have no effect. They have no effect because people still think it’s cool to smoke.

Re: San Francisco Becomes First U.S. City to Pass an E-Cigarette Ban

#86

Post by idunno246 »

kaycebasques wrote: post #36

The HN response seems strongly negative so far. Can someone educated in the space play devil’s advocate and share ideas on why it might be a good move?

It's a ban on non-FDA approved products. They need to get approved by 2022 anyway, and presumably can apply earlier. At worst its a two year ban. It doesn't seem awful to say the product needs to go through the same evaluations that cigarettes have already gone through

Re: San Francisco Becomes First U.S. City to Pass an E-Cigarette Ban

#87

Post by komali2 »

kaycebasques wrote: post #36

The HN response seems strongly negative so far. Can someone educated in the space play devil’s advocate and share ideas on why it might be a good move?

Easily. Vape usage among children and teenagers is going up. That should be stopped.

https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/news-releases/2018/12/...

>Reported use of vaping nicotine specifically in the 30 days prior to the survey nearly doubled among high school seniors from 11 percent in 2017 to 20.9 percent in 2018. More than 1 in 10 eighth graders (10.9 percent) say they vaped nicotine in the past year, and use is up significantly in virtually all vaping measures among eighth, 10th and 12th graders.

It's already illegal for kids to buy them, but it's trivial for them to just get'm anyway when the shops are already selling them. This will mean that kids will have to leave the city to get it, or get it on the black market. That will reduce usage, and send a message to other cities that it's a tenable proposition (somebody had to be the first to ban it).

There are valid issues. The typical anti-prohibition ones that crop up are "criminal black market uprising" i.e. the mob in Chicago during alcohol prohibition. I'm not sure this is as valid as vape usage isn't as prevalent as alcohol, nor is it as integral a part of our culture. Worth watching, though.

Another issue is the apparent hypocrisy - for some reason, cigarettes can still be sold in the city, besides being decidedly more disgusting, environmentally unfriendly, and unhealthy. On the one hand, they got this vape ban through quick, so it might finally allow the banning of tobacco products as a whole to come through as well. On the other hand, why target vapes before cigarettes? I have no idea.

In any case, the goal is to get kids to stop smoking. Doing one part of that (banning juuls) isn't the entire battle, and shouldn't be treated as such.

There's the devil's advocate argument. I personally believe that a better solution is no prohibition, but massive tax to ensure the proper cost is being levied on these products - i.e., for cigarettes, purchasers need to offset their decision by providing the State with the funds to cover the environmental, public health, and public image impact of the cigarettes. Similar to the carbon tax argument. Furthermore, government resources being levied on educational outreach to ensure that the public is aware of the genuine detriments to these kinds of products. Finally (this is already implemented), ensuring companies like Marlboro aren't allowed to make false claims regarding the unhealthiness of their products, even hinting as such through imagery (i.e. showing an ad of a doctor smoking or something).

Re: San Francisco Becomes First U.S. City to Pass an E-Cigarette Ban

#88

Post by writepub »

This has to be political, as singling out vaping while allowing alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, AND requesting tax dollars for "safe spaces" for drug injection, make zero common sense.

Let this be a lesson - politicians will greenlight you as long as you fill their coffers

Re: San Francisco Becomes First U.S. City to Pass an E-Cigarette Ban

#89

Post by 0x70dd »

Almost 2 years ago I saw a comment on HN from a guy who quit smoking after reading Alan Carr's "The Easy Way". As a person who was heavily addicted, often smoking more than a pack a day, struggling to quit for good, I decided to read the book. It did wonders - for almost 2 years I haven't smoked and I don't miss it. It also helped friends to whom I recommended the book. I wanted to drop a comment here in case I can inspire others to give it a try.

Re: San Francisco Becomes First U.S. City to Pass an E-Cigarette Ban

#90

Post by scarface74 »

QuickToBan wrote: post #40
bcp2384 wrote: post #18

Convinced part of the problem with political offices is that elected politicians have no incentive to actually consider second order or third order effects of any piece of legislation they pass. Everything is optimized for first order effects only e.g. optics because that is what they think "shows" they did something.

As a result the entire planet is in grave danger due to climate change. How do we fix this? To borrow a little from Switzerland, I think a direct democracy at every level of government is needed. But first we must have many more remote jobs so people don't feel pressured to live in cities. They can then result in the creation of new cities elsewhere with a direct democracy via cryptographically secure apps.

This very much HN bubble thinking. In the grand scheme of things, a very small percentage of jobs are conducive for remote work.
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