E-cigarettes are plastic and metal devices that heat a liquid nicotine solution in a disposable cartridge, creating vapor that the "smoker" inhales. A tiny light on the tip even glows like a real cigarette. They have prompted debate over how risky they are and whether they're even legal....It sounds like the passengers are doing a pretty good job at interpretation. It's an electronic device, not a smoking device.
Numerous videos on YouTube show passengers using the devices on airplanes. ... [S]ome passengers have interpreted flight attendant instructions to mean that the devices were only prohibited when other electronic devices were not allowed during takeoff and landing.
Many airlines already have begun informing passengers that the devices are not allowed on flights, but [Senator Frank Lautenberg, author of the 1987 smoking ban] said there had been confusion over their use and wanted to make sure officials were solidly opposed to opening the door to e-smoking on planes.Opening the door? How dare a politician talk to us like that! The doors are open until they close them with laws.
"I understand from an airline's point of view the hassles it could create," [said Jason Healy, president of e-cigarette maker Blu Cigs.] "It's not the actual product, it's the disruption and explaining to everyone else that it's not smoke."Not smoking does not become smoking because you have to keep explaining that it is not smoking. If the disruption of people thinking these things are smoking is important enough to deny the physical needs and pleasures of the individuals who use them, then summon up the political will to ban them explicitly. And quit lying.
People need to quit smoking and quit lying. If you're trying to quit smoking, maybe it will help you to have an e-cigarette that delivers some of the satisfaction you get from smoking. There is no corresponding device to wean you off your lying. Oh, but you say you're not lying, you're interpreting. Hey, your interpreting looks more like lying that an e-cigarette looks like smoking, and I'm going to grab it right out of your mouth with my blog. How dare you disrupt me like that!
[Correction.]
Posts
77 comments:
Is this what FLOTUS meant when she said POTUS had quit smoking?
Is he an e-smoker?
Really, everything is negotiable, with the correct representation.
The cutting line here is:
"Hey, your interpreting looks more like lying that an e-cigarette looks like smoking".
Indeed. How the government "regulates" products or services or the selling or transmitting of same across state lines (or not)has become the "law" we must all be wary of; it's created by unelected officials and is enforced by unelected officials.
Maybe we should call them "e-legislators"!
Weasel-words.
I'm sick of 'em.
Smoking has become such a taboo that even appearing to smoke is verboten. That's the bottom line.
That's a pretty normal view these days, among our more open-minded, permissive, civil-liberties-loving friends on the left: Anything unfamiliar, anything new (unless they thought of it first, and they don't think of much), is a threat to society and is presumed to be banned by default. Or if they can't find any excuse to claim it's already banned, that's a "loophole" that needs to be closed.
It's the Human Ingenuity in the Pursuit of Happiness Loophole, the most dangerous loophole of all. Because no matter how you rail and rage at people and pass more and more arbitrary laws, they still persist in trying to pursue their own happiness, instead of yours.
But maybe if you ask nicely they might consider giving you permission, if you explain what's in it for them. Nothing in it for them? So sorry.
But in this particular case, LaHood's view actually makes perfect sense from where he sits: He thinks the purpose of the ban on smoking on airplanes is, to a large degree, to punish people for being smokers. The effect of smoking on other passengers is only half of it. If smokers have found a way to act like smokers on an airplane, even without affecting anybody else at all, they are, in his mind, violating the clear intent of the law. The consideration for their fellow passengers is just an insidious, tricksy attempt to weasel around The Rules, and Ray LaHood is not so easily bamboozled.
It's obvious to us that LaHood's sense of the intent of the law is maliciously insane, but it's not obvious to him, because he's better than we are.
I am endlessly chagrined that this kind of careless canceling of liberties comes from my generation. As leftish twenty-somethings we were reacting against the lock-step uniformity of conservatives and trumpeting the value of being ourselves. Apparently most of my generation were reacting against style rather than principle, because once in power the thrust of our political efforts have been to use government to force everyone to behave in a uniform, lock-step way. Of course, this time you can wear your hair long.
While it might not constitute actually smoking, there is an appearance that you are enjoying yourself, and that will not be tolerated.
This reminds me of the time I "wrote" with an eraser on my desk and the teacher who discovered it did a whole lecture the next day about the graffiti he saw that that turned out to be only eraser dust.
William Saletan in Slate:
"Let's be blunt about what's going on here. We tolerated smoking until science proved it was harmful to nonsmokers. As momentum grew, the war on smoking became cultural, with disapproval and ostracism of anyone who lit up. Electronic cigarettes have removed the war's scientific basis, but our cultural revulsion persists. Therefore, so does our prohibition and condemnation."
http://www.slate.com/id/2219690/
Smoking does not become smoking because you have to keep explaining that it is not smoking.
Seems so damned obvious, doesn't it?
Oh, sure. It was probably eraser dust in the shape of a GUN!
Somebody, probably KFI's John and Ken, said that TSA screeners believe that their job is not to prevent terrorism but to to prevent people getting more than 3oz of shampoo on airplanes.
It's mission creep.
John Gall, in an excellent must-read book on systems, has an axiom
4. Laws of Growth: Systems tend to grow, and as they grow, they encroach.
If the smoking ban is about second-hand smoke (i.e., tars and nicotine), then this is nonsense. Unless, of course, they're contained in the vapor.
If it's about having something lit and burning, especially during takeoff and landing, then they have a point.
If it's about government having one more thing to give people a hard time, then they should stay out.
PS Truth in advertising: I grew up in an extended family situation where everyone smoked to the point that, at 10 years old, I was told by the doctor I had a smoker's throat. As my elders died out, it went away and, until age 40 or so when I noticed getting sick was a lot easier if I was around someone who was smoking, the whole subject was of no moment to me.
Now, I'm a little more circumspect.
"The doors are open until they close them with laws. "
I wish they understood that the doors belongs to us too.
Could someone start an airline that allows its passengers to smoke? Seems like that could be an untapped market.
I know quite a few people who are chain smokers so they don't take flights that are more than one hour.
There is no corresponding device to wean you off your lying.
They wish Al Gore had never invented this thing, so there's that.
AJ Lynch said...
Could someone start an airline that allows its passengers to smoke? Seems like that could be an untapped market.
As I remember the spiel, it's Federal regulation, so anybody cleared to fly would have to comply.
"If it's about having something lit and burning...then they have a point"
Do they? Doesn't burning involve, you know, fire?
The taboo comment is spot on. If someone e-lit up next to me on a flight I would feel flustered, I think.
Does it matter that we serve booze on planes, without regard to an onboard recovering alcoholic or alcohol taboos?
Contracts are useless with someone on the political left.
The social contract of language - words having a commonly understood definition in communicatiion - is broken pretty much everytime someone on the left speaks.
"We tolerated smoking until science proved it was harmful to nonsmokers"
Actually, science has proved no such thing.
The Myth of Second Hand Smoke
The Left are the new Puritans, that's all it is, all it ever has been.
On second thought: Yes, heat can burn. Burning is not exclusive to fire.
But is 'lighting up" the same as a hot coil? How hot does that coil have to be? What if the nicotine substance was highly reactive at low heats?
publishless said...
"If it's about having something lit and burning...then they have a point"
Do they? Doesn't burning involve, you know, fire?
No, it involves something hot enough to set something flammable on fire as in, "Sgt. Friday, you already have one Chesterfield burning in the ashtray and you're lighting another?".
He sounds as tiresome as PB&J.
Is anything actually burning? Smoke suggests combustion. If you aren't inhaling the by-product of combustion, you can't be smoking. That seems pretty clear to me.
I wonder how the nicotine is vaporized.
If I can't smell it when the person next to me is e-smoking, I won't e-care. Do what you want, just don't get in my space with it.
Trailer for new movie on high speed rail.
http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/atlas-shrugged-movie-trailer
I never had an interest in smoking. But prohibitionists like this give me the strong urge to buy an electronic cigarette just out of protest.
Tell St Peter at the Golden Gate that you hate to make him wait, you just gotta have another e-cigarette
Real problem with being a passenger on a plane is closed system that recirculates stale air that is vector for spread of diseases. LaHood should focus on improved filters and circulation in planes (buildings too) rather than ecigs smokers without lobbyists to fund campaigns
Although I agree with the core points of this post/comments, what sticks out to me is that some enterprizing company simply needs to manufacture e-cigarettes in the shape of asthma inhalers. No reason the e-cigarettes have to be white tubes with a glowing red light at the end.
Problem solved. Who is going to object to someone sitting next to them and using an inhaler?
@Bruce
Absolutely brilliant.
Of course, there are any number of ways for delivering nicotine that don't involve even fake smoke, snuff, gum and lozenges among them.
But as an ex-smoker, I can understand the need for the whole manual ritual. I also understand the need for the fake smoke. I can remember smoking in the dark, and somehow the experience never seemed complete since I couldn't see the smoke.
[changed there to their ↑]
If I can't smell it when the person next to me is e-smoking, I won't e-care.
Would you mind if you could smell them? Would you mind if their elbow was in your space the whole flight? If they opened up the NYT and kept shoving one end over your tray while they read something in the opposite bottom corner? If their feet were where your legs go? It they drop back so that their skank hat or hair is in your lap? If they took off their socks and draped them in the seat pocket to air them out? If they drank too much and bent your ear for four hours straight because you appear to be harmless and sweet and because you are a captive audience? If they brought their baby from the front to the back right next to you in order to change its diaper and so that everybody on the plane can oooh and aaaah over the adorable new baby? If they weighed 5X as much as your svelt self and boarded late taking up the empty seat right next to you because heavy people just love sitting next to skinny people? Then shoved their luggage into to the overhead smashing yours? Then locked you in place until the entire plane emptied?
I love flying. This post makes me want to buy a box of candy cigarettes, go on a plane and pretend like they're real.
It's only peripherally related, but the notion of banning something because not doing so would require explanation reminds me.
Years ago, I was part of a task force making recommendations to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department regarding harmful or potentially harmful exotic, aquatic species. Nature has a lot of nasty species presenting true risks to public health and to the environment, and I have no problem banning them.
But one of the proposals was to ban what passes in the aquarium trade as pacu. These are comparatively large, herbivorous fish that happen to resemble piranha. When the fish get too big, some people irresponsibly dump them into public waterways. Anglers then catch them, the media reports that a piranha has been caught in a local waterway, and Texas Parks and Wildlife catches criticism for being insufficiently vigilant.
At least as of the time of the task force, no one could point to example of a pacu surviving the winter (even in deep South Texas), so they presented no material harm to the environment, and being herbivores, they presented no harm to public safety. Some in Parks and Wildlife wanted to ban them solely to avoid misconceived criticism.
My point was that regulation should be aimed at protecting the public and protecting the environment, not protecting the regulators. Pacu are still legal in Texas, at least for the time being.
"Smoking does not become smoking because you have to keep explaining that it is not smoking."
Oops.... that should be "Not smoking does not become smoking because you have to keep explaining that it is not smoking."
Sorry I had to explain that. Corrected in the post.
"Although I agree with the core points of this post/comments, what sticks out to me is that some enterprizing company simply needs to manufacture e-cigarettes in the shape of asthma inhalers. No reason the e-cigarettes have to be white tubes with a glowing red light at the end. Problem solved. Who is going to object to someone sitting next to them and using an inhaler?"
The e-cigs serve a bunch of psychological needs, but some of them are not worthy of respect: the need to make other people think you are smoking, that you're a rebel; the need to amuse yourself by upsetting the prigs who caused the original smoking ban; the need to attract attention and make things all about you.
What a silly issue. The more serious work for secretary LaHood to focus on is the damage done by second hand fart smells on airplanes. The bad smells, or the appearance of issuing a bad smell, is really the same smelly issue.
If the disruption of people thinking these things are smoking is important enough to deny the physical needs and pleasures of the individuals who use them, then summon up the political will to ban them explicitly.
But be aware that since denying the physical needs and pleasures of the individuals who use electronic cigarettes is not within the powers delegated to the Congress, summoning the political will ought to require a Constitutional amendment.
E-cigs compete with Chantix, thereby undermining the entire purpose of smoking bans, the bottom line of Pfizer.
Bruce: I used to see in US drugstores (and still find in UK drugstores) nicotine inhalors/inhalitors. They're 3", off-white plastic tubes that open so that a cartridge containing nicotine and flavorings can be inserted.
Several people I know have used them to quit smoking as these tubes provide much of the mouth- and throat-feel that actual smoking does.
I use them when I'm on international flights where it's going to be seven or eight hours before I can get to a cigarette.
BTW, nicotine, by itself, is not an overly dangerous substance, as toxic substances go. Sure, an overdose can kill. But it is not the issue when people start talking about 'second hand smoke'. It's the tars and other compounds in smoke that cause cancer, not the nicotine.
"The e-cigs serve a bunch of psychological needs, but some of them are not worthy of respect: the need to make other people think you are smoking, that you're a rebel; the need to amuse yourself by upsetting the prigs who caused the original smoking ban; the need to attract attention and make things all about you."
That is an entirely condescending remark, wasn't aware you sidelined as a psychologist.
LaHood adds this statement to a list that makes Joe Biden's comments look both temperate and judicious.
bagoh20,
"I wish they understood that the doors belongs to us too."
What's that "too" doing there? I'd say the doors belong to us only. We are the sovereigns; the politicians are merely our servants.
Puritanism is supposed to be a disease of the Right. But here we have e-smoking banned because it gives you the effects of smoking without the health risks.
Needs not deserving of respect?
...the need to make other people think you are smoking, that you're a rebel; the need to amuse yourself by upsetting the prigs who caused the original smoking ban; the need to attract attention and make things all about you.
These things don't discomfort or inconvenience anyone else. They don't cost anyone else any time or money. While not noble, they aren't bad either.
So why not just respect them?
You might not agree 100% with all the opinions of Mr Electro-Cigarette Smoker, but so what?! No two of use agree 100% on anything.
"You can make anything you want be true, if you only believe. And "you" means "the government," and "believe" means "dictate."
Dang, Ann! Sounding positively libertarian, aren't we?
I don't suppose they have candy cigarettes for kids these days; but they'd make an interesting test case on airplanes to define case law.
There were also imitation cigarettes, with a convincing glowing tip and ash made dust-laden reflective red paper, for serious kids.
"The Left are the new Puritans, that's all it is, all it ever has been."
Actually, the Left were the old Puritans, too:
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/01/24/the-birth-of-the-blues/
My point was that regulation should be aimed at protecting the public and protecting the environment, not protecting the regulators.
Self protection is the "iron kaw" odf all bureaucracies. Much of what the TSA does has no appreciable effect on terrorism, but it does provide them with a ready excuse should a terrorist incident occur. The FDA bans drugs that prove useful to certain small groups of patients, but have some risk. They do this not to protect the public, but to insulate themselves from another Thalidomide incident. Once you understand that much of what government bureaucracies do is CYA, as opposed to their ostensible purpose, they begin to make a horrid kind of sense.
Uh, make that "iron law". It's early, I haven't finished my coffee.
Damn, that's of, not "odf".
"And quit lying."
I don't see that anyone's pointed this out yet; you are giving this instruction to elected officials...
"What is truth?"
Say, if Obama still smokes "occasionally" does he smoke on Air Force One? He may be the President, but it is still a workplace.
Quit smoking?
Tell it to schizophrenics.
Schizophrenia and Tobacco
That is an entirely condescending remark, wasn't aware you sidelined as a psychologist.
I sort of agree with you, although I wouldn't have put it so harshly. I think what the good professor has done with that statement is outed herself as someone who never addicted to tobacco. I started smoking in 1966 at age 16, and yes, at that time and at that age smoking was all about the external things she mentions. But that didn't last long. After that it was addiction. By the time I quit 8 years later I cared nothing about impressing others, I just needed a smoke. The value of e-cigs looking like the real thing is to fool the smoker into thinking they are smoking. It has nothing to do with people watching.
I use an E-cig, they work fine, but I still wont fly.To all you ignorant people posting, do some research! Nicotine is Not carcinogenic but is one of the most toxic substances known, the solution is Vegetable glycerin, it vaporises at about 300 degrees.
You cant smell it but I can taste it.
You want flavor? I'm currently using a Blueberry flavor, tastes like Maple syrup pancakes,
P.S. I use a Black cig, with a blue light,looks like something else,They were developed for the guys in Afghanistan
We used to be allowed to smoke at the bus loading area at my local, blue collar high school back in the mid-70's.
Now there is no smoking but fellatio is acceptable, if not instructed, with safety of course for the children.
I remember when you could smoke on planes, then later when their were non smoking sections. Even though I didn't smoke, I'd sit in the smoking section as the people were more worldly, edgier. Non-smoking was for moms, little kids, vegan enviro hiker types that drove 240 Volvos for 20 years.
My mom was a Stewardess, later a Purser for Pan-Am after the war, from Miami to Rio. She said it was a duty on the long flights for the pilot to get his coat and hat on, come back to the bar in the back of the plane and have a drink and a smoke with the passengers. But, these were guys that got bombers over Berlin, or a thousand miles of trackless Pacific ocean.
We're so much better people now. /s
Boy this whole water vapor kerfuffle has me really steamed!
Maybe if they let the temperature on the airplane drop to 30 degrees everyone exhaling would appear to be "smoking."
Can you can get a second hand effect from the nicotine vapor? I wonder how many billions the FDA and EPA can spend sorting this issue out?
Somehow when I read this I immediately thought of the book 1984. Maybe we are living through it now?
I'm in agreement with all the commenters who think banning e-cigarettes because they look like cigarettes is stupid and wrong. However, there also seems to be something of a trend in the comments to dismiss the ban on smoking in planes as simply the efforts of control freak leftists to keep other people from enjoying themselves. I understand there are questions about whether second-hand smoke causes cancer, but there are other concerns for some of us. I, for one, am allergic to smoke, and have asthma. If smoking were still allowed on planes, I and others like me would not be able to fly at all. I am sorry that this inconveniences people who are addicted, but not sorry enough to want the ban lifted. E-cigs, on the other hand, seem like a fine compromise. They get their nicotine fix, while I still get my oxygen fix. Everybody wins.
However, there also seems to be something of a trend in the comments to dismiss the ban on smoking in planes as simply the efforts of control freak leftists to keep other people from enjoying themselves
I'm not dismissing the ban. I believe it was a good thing to have occurred. OTOH, that's no reason why I can't also believe that control freak leftists, or Puritans, want to run my life. Except of course for sex and drugs, then you're free as a bird to do whatever you like.
I sort of agree with you, although I wouldn't have put it so harshly.
I agree, I was a little harsh. But I found it an insulting remark to be honest. I also though AA was describing teenagers, but if so she should have said so. I agree with the rest of your reasoning. Aside from my story starting a little earlier it was much the same as yours, with the exception that I haven't quit, and likely never will.
Actually, the Left were the old Puritans, too:
Yes. That was a very good article/analysis by Mead. Thanks for the link.
Apparently LaHood spoke on Thursday at the Commercial Space Transportation Conference about high-speed rail.
"Real problem with being a passenger on a plane is closed system that recirculates stale air that is vector for spread of diseases. "
That's a side effect of banning smoking, and one of the reasons the airlines *wanted* a federal regulation banning smoking. An airplane which allows smoking has to change the air in the cabin 6 times per hour. An airplane which does not allow smoking has to change the air 3 times per hour. At 30,000 feet, air is thin and cold, and needs to be compressed and heated before it can be piped into the cabin; reducing the amount of new air which has to be pumped in to the airplane creates a noticeable fuel savings for the airline. (But they wanted the regulation so that none of their competitors could grab the smoker market.)
Forget the ban on e-cigs. How about the non-usage of modern electronic devices during take-off and landings? Stupid.
Can I eat a candy cigarette on a plane?
Regulating interstate commerce includes forcing people to buy things they don't want to buy
Not only are they forcing you to buy something (health insurance), they're forcing you to purchase an item that can not be purchased across state lines.
Interstate commerce my ass.
I'm an e-cigarette user and haven't used tobacco cigarettes in 1.5 years. My device is black and silver, the only light is on the activation button and it looks more like a marker or pen light.
Additionally, unlike smoke, the vapor can be held in until nearly nothing is exhaled (called "stealth vaping.") Good luck enforcing that in indoor use bans!
Most e-cigarette users never intended to quit nicotine use - they are looking for a smoking alternative without all of the risks, restrictions and stigma. Really - smokeless nicotine is no more dangeous than caffeine, so why should they be expected to quit? The whole point of quitting nicotine was to quit smoking, ie. exposing the body to the toxins and carcinogens in SMOKE. Since pharmaceutical treatments have a 93% failure rate, the anti-tobacco groups had to start vilifying not only smokers but "nicotine addicts," as well. Treating e-cigarette users the same as smokers is just their way to further that goal. It shows their close-mindedness in that they see e-cigarette users not as former smokers trying to reduce health risks and not expose bystanders but as degenerates trying to bypass smoking bans and continue their nicotine addiction (ignoring the relatively safe nature of smokeless nicotine products.)
Now that there are smokeless sources of nicotine that reduce health risks by 98-99%, they SHOULD have nothing to complain about. Smokeless nicotine users are no longer infringing upon your space nor adding to health costs. Yet, we are stil expected to quit nicotine use. There is absolutely no reason other than zealous prohibitionism.
Now they literally lie and force tobacco companies and e-cigarette companies to lie about how switching to a smokeless alternative is nearly the same as quitting altogether. (This is proven in numerous studies, look it up.) They make disingenuous warnings such as "This product is not a 'safe' alternative to smoking" (snus) or "This product causes oral cancer" (chew) or "The FDA found carcinogens like those tobacco cigaretes" (e-cigarettes) all the while knowing that snus is 99% safer than smoking and has caused less serious adverse reactions than Chantix, the chance of oral cancer with modern, western chew is more than HALF that of smoking (and extremely rare even then) and that the "carcinogens" found in the FDa testing of e-cigarettes were at the same safe, extremely low level as found in the FDA-approved nicotine patch. Menawhile, smokers think "I may as well keep smoking." How is that improving public health? It's like banning all low-fat products, leaving the high-fat products on the market and telling obese people to just quit eating anything they enjoy with fat in it. Oh, but here is a nasty-tasting, low-fat pill you can take that is "safe and effective" with a 7% success rate getting people off fat. But it may cause you to want to kill yourself.
The organization I belong to (http://casaa.org) is trying to get the truth out to smokers about smokeless alternatives. Just as someone can improve their health switching to low-fat alternatives, smokers would GREATLY reduce their health risks switching to smoke-free alternatives. But the anti-smoking movement (to improve health) has become the anti-tobacco/anti-nicotine movement (with little to no health improvements) and smokers who would otherwise switch to a reduced harm alternative are told insterad to "quit or die."
Banning e-cigarettes from aitrlines has nothing to do with public health, nothing to do with actual complaints, nothing to do with any proven adverse health effects to other passengers and everything to do with promoting the vilification of smokers and other "low-life nicotine addicts" to further their goal of absolute abstinence.
Kristin Noll-Marsh
http://wivapers.blogspot.com
That's all quibbling and picking nits.
The anti-smokers commit flagrant scientific fraud by ignoring more than 50 studies which show that human papillomaviruses cause at least 1/4 of non-small cell lung cancers. Smokers and passive smokers are more likely to have been exposed to this virus for socioeconomic reasons. And the anti-smokers' studies are all based on lifestyle questionnaires, so they're cynically DESIGNED to blame tobacco for all those extra lung cancers that are really caused by HPV. And they commit the same type of fraud with every disease they blame on tobacco.
http://www.smokershistory.com/hpvlungc.htm
http://www.smokershistory.com/SGHDlies.html
And, all their so-called "independent" reports were ring-led by the same guy, Jonathan M. Samet, including the Surgeon General Reports, the EPA report, the IARC report, and the ASHRAE report, and he's now the chairman of the FDA Committee on Tobacco. He and his politically privileged clique exclude all the REAL scientists from their echo chamber. That's how they make their reports "unanimous!"
http://www.smokershistory.com/SGlies.html
For the government to commit fraud to deprive us of our liberties is automatically a violation of our Constitutional rights to the equal protection of the laws, just as much as if it purposely threw innocent people in prison. And for the government to spread lies about phony smoking dangers is terrorism, no different from calling in phony bomb threats.
My E Cig has really helped me cut back and really think about quitting all together. I think switching is a great idea!
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