Doesn't the 2nd-hand vapor contain nicotine, just as the vapor inhaled by the user does? Maybe less than from a cigarette (or maybe not?), but still some.
Nicotine is an addictive, potentially toxic drug, with some possible beneficial effects, and some definite harmful effects. I'd like to be able to choose for myself whether I'm going to inhale it.
How is "I want to choose which drugs I expose myself to" an expression of the nanny state?
If you want to consume a drug in public, figure out how to do so in such a way that you don't share it with bystanders against their will. We already have patches, gum, snuff, chaw; if you really want to inhale it as a vapor, why can't you do that in private?
Nicotine is harmful in high doses, like > 10g. Cigarettes have something close to 1mg of it. You get intoxicated and die for all the other crap in it way before Nicotine is a problem.
I wasn't able to find the relevant page in Google books, but I did see a snippet that seemed to say that some of the other chemicals in cigarette smoke may actually have a protective effect against nicotine toxicity.
Gosselin RE (1988). Clinical toxicology of Commercial Products. VI.ed Baltimore, Williams & Wilkins: 311-313.
That's just toxicity. Nicotine can cause insomnia and various other side effects. It obviously induces dependence. Someone shouldn't have to be exposed to that involuntarily.
> Someone shouldn't have to be exposed to that involuntarily.
I wish I had the same right to not be exposed to agrotoxics, growth hormones and antibiotics from the meat, xenoestrogen present in all damn plastic and airborne lead from exhausts.
Maybe if the government really cared about well-being they would be regulating those, instead of wasting time with e-cigarrettes, no?
Airborne lead from exhaust? I take it you're not in North America, where the governments banned tetraethyllead in the 1970s through 1990s, or in the EU, where it was banned in 2000 (most individual countries banned it earlier), or ...? Even Serbia banned it a couple years ago. According to Wikipedia, only in Algeria is it still used in gasoline.
Wasting time on what we all know to be near meaningless makes you a concern troll.
I'm all for regulating what you can inflict on those downwind of you, but if you called the city inspectors because you were worried about second-hand e-cig vapor they'd arrive in a car that produced literally thousands of times more known deadly toxins.
We definitely should start testing common things people use like deodorant, makeup, hairspray, e-cigs, etc. But if we do it in order of suspected toxicity you'll be waiting a while for those results. And if you read the list of things to worry about and get to where second-hand vapor is even visible on the cost/benefit scale, you will have to be living in a bubble.
Nicotine is an addictive, potentially toxic drug, with some possible beneficial effects, and some definite harmful effects. I'd like to be able to choose for myself whether I'm going to inhale it.
How is "I want to choose which drugs I expose myself to" an expression of the nanny state?
If you want to consume a drug in public, figure out how to do so in such a way that you don't share it with bystanders against their will. We already have patches, gum, snuff, chaw; if you really want to inhale it as a vapor, why can't you do that in private?