The politics of vaping

Bishop City council members were handed another ticking time bomb after their discussion about a potential medical marijuana cultivation ordinance (see previous page) at last Monday’s regular meeting. This time bomb came in the form of a discussion on vaping.

What is vaping? It is “vapor” produced by electronic devices often referred to as simply e-cigarettes. They range from simple cigarette-looking devices, to devices that are about the size of a pack of cigarettes with a mouthpiece attached. They have become increasingly popular as a way to ingest nicotine without smoking. Their appeal comes from the “e-liquid” used to create the vapor. Some flavors are targeted to those who still prefer the tobacco, cigar, and menthol tastes found in cigarettes. Other flavors, such as vanilla, coffee cotton candy, Gummy Bears, Skittles, and Bubblegum, target younger smokers.

The vaping industry recently exploded, becoming specialized with thousands of independent businesses across the country offering an astounding variety of flavors and even nicotine levels against which competing cigarette companies simply cannot compete.

While initially represented as “safe” and now as “safer than cigarettes,” the industry has come under increasing fire from anti-smoking forces who say it is as bad or even much worse than smoking cigarettes. Vaping opponents say that youth are being targeted with candy-flavored vaping oils and that it will lead to smoking.

Most of the devices allow the user to control the voltage (which increases the vapor) and even the level of nicotine ingested. According to industry sources, e-liquids with little or no concentrations of nicotine outsell those with medium to high strength nicotine vapor oils by a two-to-one margin. Even if true, none of this is to say that e-cigarettes are harmless, and the greater concern expressed during the Bishop City Council meeting was over the location of vaping shops and lounges, and public areas such as the City park, where vaping would be allowed. Council members agreed that the activity only be allowed in “appropriate locations.”

But Council member Karen Schwartz, a local businesswoman, wondered “what is the difference between vaping shops and lounges and liquor stores and bars selling alcohol?” She felt that the same standards and rules should apply to both.

While not containing many of the same harmful ingredients found in regular cigarette products, a recent study showed that the vapor e-cigarette users inhale contain multiple forms of formaldehyde when high voltage is used to vaporize the oil. While much was made of that study by opponents, proponents argue that the study was flawed and its conclusion highly misleading, as most people that use the product do not do so using the high voltage setting because it gives, as one scientist described in a recent article in the Washington Post, as “a horrible taste.” Even one of the study’s authors, David Peyton, insists that the study has been mischaracterized by the popular press and e-cigarette opponents, adding that “it is exceedingly frustrating to me that we are being associated with saying that e-cigarettes are more dangerous than cigarettes. That is a fact not in evidence. Yet, there is a lot that we do not yet know about e-cigarettes because they are still so new and need to be studied carefully.”

One effect of all the negative publicity has been that, according to another study published by the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research, a third of people who have abandoned e-cigarettes and returned to smoking did so because of concerns over the health effects of vaping.

Here again our local government officials are placed in a position of having to decide how best to handle the new vaping industry that has sprung up all over the country, often without regulation.

Council members did agree that some regulation as to where vaping would be allowed should be set in place. As with the medical marijuana cultivation issue, which preceded the vaping discussion, the Planning Commission is being tasked to take on the issue.

And as with the discussion on medical marijuana cultivation, City staff was asked to provide the Council members and the Planning Commission with examples of ordinances already in place in other municipalities.  Because vaping is new, increasingly popular, and has fast become a big-business, there is much more to the issue to be learned and decided upon. Some type of regulations are likely to be put in place, but whether they are simplistic solutions that cater to preconceived positions for and against vaping remains to be seen.