San Francisco Becomes First U.S. City to Pass an E-Cigarette Ban • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by jonahhorowitz » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 11:00 PM UTC

markrages wrote: post #100

jonahhorowitz wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Surgeon General: > E-cigarette use among U.S. youth and young adults is now a major public health concern. E-cigarette use has increased considerably in recent years, growing an astounding 900% among high school students from 2011 to 2015. [0] [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/e-cigarettes...

This growth percentage is for E-cigarettes, not for smoking. And when were E-cigs invented anyway? Comparing against 2011 may be a way to get big percentage numbers, without describing much about prevalence.

> About 4.9 million middle and high school students were current users (used in the past 30 days) of some type of tobacco product in 2018, up from 3.6 million in 2017.

[0]: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0211-youth-tobacco-...

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

#122

Post by komali2 » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 11:00 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #104

komali2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Easily. Vape usage among children and teenagers is going up. That should be stopped. Because banning substances has worked so well in the past - see weed.

>see weed.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, without further argument. Marijuana usage went up a couple percentage points in Colorado after legalization.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-viz-met-colorado-lega...

Prohibition kinda works, kinda doesn't. I think it really depends. Banning something like alcohol that the vast majority of the population partakes in was very silly. Banning heroin? I'm not so sure it's as simple.

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

#123

Post by natermer » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 11:01 PM UTC

ladberg wrote: post #81

JamesBarney wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I really don't think that this is a accurate statement at all.

There are a few dangers to vaping.

The biggest one is having a vaporizer that is malfunctioning and is burning things instead of heating them up. The complex chemical reactions are difficult to predict. But it has the side effect of tasting like shit.

The second biggest danger is the flavorings. However the community has been very good at self-policing and eliminating flavors that are found to pose a risk.

The last danger is a sort of being a idiot and using way too much nicotine.

On the flip side you can have zero nicotine. So peer pressure isn't really even a problem as you can get zero nicotine juices.

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

#124

Post by slowrabbit » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 11:01 PM UTC

E-Cigarette Nazis fuck off

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

#125

Post by colechristensen » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 11:01 PM UTC

The moral panic regarding tobacco and nicotine is well past its expiration date.

Yes, the prevalence of smoking was a problem; yes, it's social acceptability in places people had to be (workplaces for example) impacted the health of people who didn't want it; and yes, some people still get addicted with sad consequences.

BUT, at some point you have to let people have their freedom to choose and not stop people using nicotine products who understand the risks and don't have dependence issues.

Vaping tobacco products is excellent for quitting because the nicotine delivered is less effective. There is not less of it, it has diminished desirable effects.

MAOIs are drugs which inhibit a kind of enzyme in the brain and among other effects have strong drug interactions increasing the potency of many psychoactive drugs.

Cigarette smoke either contains or has similar effects to MAOIs the effect which is significantly more addictive [1] nicotine.

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16177026

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

#126

Post by renlo » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 11:01 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #55

llamataboot wrote: post #15

All prohibition is asinine but this has to take the cake. Even if there is no way to prevent more kids from getting addicted to vaping (and that's a big if), having less kids and many less adults smoking cigarettes is such a huge win for public health. -- Anecdotally I went from 2 packs a day to chain vaping for a few years, health improved enough to start being much more active, finally weaned down nicotine, quittin…

Would you support methadone being freely available over the counter? After all, it is a valuable tool in helping get people off more dangerous opioids.

methadone and vaping, while both used for cessation, are not comparable

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

#127

Post by qes » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 11:01 PM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #84

eweise wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Gr…

> instead your response is to ban only beer

More like banning near beer.

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

#128

Post by cheriot » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 11:02 PM UTC

I swear officer, I'm high. This is all weed! /s

I can understand wanting to control access to something that kids are getting into, but it feels like we're repeating some mistakes here.

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

#129

Post by graphememes » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 11:02 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #24

I'll never understand why lawmakers think that fruit and other flavorings for tobacco are aimed at getting kids hooked. It's almost like they think no adult has ever enjoyed fruit or candy, and that making teens smoke plain cigarettes will keep them from being rebellious. I've tried almost every variation of ecigarette mod out there except mechanical mods, because I'm not an idiot enough to know I'm too much of an id…

Because kids love candy. Adults do too, but kids much more.

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

#130

Post by scarejunba » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 11:02 PM UTC

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.

A direct democracy would be even worse. In California, prop 13 didn’t come from the legislature. It came through ballot proposition. And that law is the granddaddy of second and third order effects.