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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

#151
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah they are pretty useless. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it as I got downvoted. But the other points might make some difference.

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

#152
Haha, I wonder how much of an effect this is going to have. Most SF kids know how to take BART down to Daly City and everyone knows enforcement of using a vape is not going to happen. Like you could always smoke weed on the streets of SF. It was defacto legal for years.

It’ll be interesting to see if taking BART/muni down to Daly City will be a problem.

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

#153
post #56
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a bunch of people with you and e-cigs have real benefits for allowing people to ween off the addiction that patches never offered... it's just that the marketing actions of these companies have been incredibly irresponsible and the inaction from the US Surgeon General has been embarrassing. I really don't want anyone to feel shamed over their smoking habit but it's an unhealthy thing and if you get into as an…

When you talk about irresponsible marketing, do you mean from the e-cig companies specifically and do you have examples? My only experience with the e-cigarette marketing have been commercials where some guy is standing there telling you the same type of stories being shared here “I used to smoke x amount of cigarettes a day, now I use this”, followed by the usual boilerplate “nicotine is an addictive substance” disc…

https://www.google.com/search?q=juul+ads&safe=off&hl=de&tbm=... as a starting point for ads very much on the "attract young people", not the "medically helpful device" end of the spectrum.

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

#154

Of all the things they could be doing… taking a crap in the streets is fine, but vaping is not. Got it.

You can write to them about your feelings that they should be focusing on different things. - Board.of.Supervisors@sfgov.org - https://sfbos.org/contacts-office-clerk-board Or if you have thoughts about this particular issue, it is now in Mayor Breed's hands: - MayorLondonBreed@sfgov.org - https://sfmayor.org/contact-mayor-london-breed

Do you think they care if you waste your time on that? The board has proven to be incompetent for decades. The government of SF is fundamentally broken.

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

#155
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don't know if you realize how mainstream smoking was. Everyone did it. Eeeeeveryone. I have a feeling most of your college friends will grow out of vaping.

I get that everyone smoking is way worse than everyone vaping, but nowadays smoking (cigarettes) isn't popular at all. Even without vaping claiming some of the would-be smokers, I doubt a significant portion of my generation would smoke.

Of course, I'm also biased by having only lived in LA and the Bay Area where I bet smoking is less prevalent than other parts of the country.

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

#156
post #23

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…

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…

Let's play devil's advocate.

Where's the proof that e-cigarettes are harmful?

We have mountains of evidence that cigarettes are one of the most harmful habits one can do.

Do we have proof e-cigs cause lung cancer, or other types of cancer? COPD? asthma? no, we do not.

edit: people seem to be very downvote-happy on this site when they disagree with something.

Combustion of tobacco produces polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) which are heavily carcinogenic. Vaporization of nicotine does NOT produce these compounds.

Additionally the UK Government claims that e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than tobacco cigarettes, suggesting they are less damaging than junk food, soda, or car exhaust. Why not ban coca-cola and real cigarettes besides ecig?

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

#157

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.

At least with ecigs the batteries and cartridges probably end up in a trash bin instead of thrown on the ground like with cigarette butts. A single pack of cigarettes is 20 butts, and having been a smoker (and having known many other smokers), a good deal of butts are discarded wherever without care. Ecig components typically last longer than a single pack (an atomizer lasts longer than a pack of cigarettes, anywhere from 2-20 packs worth). A battery lasts longer and gets more use. So while ecig components will be thrown out, they are thrown away much less frequently than cigarette butts are thrown out.

To be clear, I no longer smoke.

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

#158
post #93

The homeless in SF use cigs, not e-cigs. It would've therefore been productive to actually ban the sale of cigs instead so as to drive out the homeless, but why would one expect an ounce of unbiased logic from politicians?

> to drive out the homeless How nice of you to think of the homeless too. Where do you want to drive them to?

Actually I think that substance abuse (cigs, alcohol, heroin, etc.) is the reason why many of them are homeless to begin with. The right thing to do for them would be to medically cure their addiction, thereby making them capable of helping themselves. This is hard to accept for those who don't know how to cheaply and sustainably treat addictions.

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

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I totally agree that it would be worse in the absence of an app based system. The point is to be adaptive and correct the legislative mistakes that get made. Adaptability is always a key requirement for the success of any system. Right now this rate of change is IMHO too bottlenecked. A two-thirds vote can also be minimally required for major changes, so as to stabilize the system.

Are you sure? After Prop J and Prop K, I’m positive that the California populace will just go after things that seem like they’ll make them individually better off in the short term. In fact, I can’t see why an app would make it different. People will still want the stability of laws being enforced for a long term. I see your proposed system as amplifying the problem honestly.

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

#160

Seems ludicrous to ban vaping without banning smoking. I wouldn't ban either personally, but if you're going to ban one...

"Queers hate techies". I saw it spraypainted on the sidewalk a while back.

Banning vaping and not tobacco keeps with the aesthetic of embracing tradition and rejecting technology. Ridiculous, but unsurprising.

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