Inquirer Editorial: A case of the vapers
The rapid rise of e-cigarettes has generated figurative as well as literal steam for good reasons. While the innovation may be ominous if it encourages more people to take up actual smoking, it could also dramatically reduce the harm of nicotine addiction if it replaces real cigarettes among the 42 million Americans who smoke - including about one in four adult Philadelphians.
The rapid rise of e-cigarettes has generated figurative as well as literal steam for good reasons. While the innovation may be ominous if it encourages more people to take up actual smoking, it could also dramatically reduce the harm of nicotine addiction if it replaces real cigarettes among the 42 million Americans who smoke - including about one in four adult Philadelphians.
The devices mimic cigarettes in appearance and delivery of nicotine, but the similarities end there. Sure, where there's smoke, there's fire, but e-cigarettes eschew both, using a vaporized nicotine solution to deliver the drug. While significant questions persist about e-cigarettes' long-term effects, they are almost certainly safer than the cocktail of carcinogens contained in cigarette smoke.
Nevertheless, a pair of City Council votes expected today could put Philadelphia in the company of New Jersey, New York City, and a few other jurisdictions at the vanguard of an e-cigarette crackdown.
One bill before Council would outlaw e-cigarette sales to minors. That certainly makes sense, and it will help ensure that the devices aren't creating smokers.
A second bill would add the devices to the city's ban on smoking in most bars, restaurants, and workplaces. That can't be justified as protecting others from secondhand smoke; consider that one e-cigarette advocate recently told Council members he had been puffing away unnoticed in their hearing room. However, given that a less advertised but nonetheless important purpose of indoor smoking bans has been to discourage the habit, there is a solid rationale for drawing a bright line against indoor "vapers" as well as smokers.
That said, public officials shouldn't rush to erase every legal distinction between e-cigarettes and tobacco products out of misguided moralism. While research remains to be done on the devices, if they substitute for cigarettes among the millions who smoke - like a potentially more popular version of nicotine gums and patches - they will prevent plenty of suffering. And that, after all, is the point.