I'm upset they have changed the definition of "smoking" to suit their agenda. Even if the only reason we vaped was to circumvent indoor or public smoking bans, what is the problem? The whole point of a smoking ban is to limit peoples exposure to secondhand smoke. If vapor rapidly dissipates, does not produce tar or a linger odor or filmy coating on surfaces, and has not been proven to cause adverse reactions in those with breathing conditions or allergies, then why do people care so much that people vape in public as a means to get around smoking bans? Some people use smokeless tobacco products in places where smoking is not permitted. I don't hear anyone getting in a tizzy over that.
I'm also highly disappointed in the amount of blatant misinformation presented on their e-cig "fact" sheet.
Wait, this one is my favorite:
Nicotine deposits react with an element in the air to form potent carcinogens
This is based off of the "thirdhand smoke" myth. A study was conducted that speculated residual nicotine lingers on surfaces a few hours after a person has smoked a cigarette in a confined space and releases "potent carcinogens". Sounds pretty scary. It is until you read the rest of this report which states nicotine residue reacts with ambient nitrous acid. Ambient nitrous acid detected indoors predominantly comes from unvented gas appliances, namely unvented gas fireplaces which (to my knowledge) aren't even legal to have in buildings in nearly every developed nation in the world.
Furthermore, this "potent carcinogen" fell into the tobacco-specific nitrosamines category (or TSNAs) which aren't even potent carcinogens in and among themselves. They are considered the most potent carcinogenic element found in the
raw tobacco leaf. On top of that the only way they were able to eek any sort of trace of
potentially cancer-causing levels of TSNAs during their study was when the researchers deposited heavy amounts of fresh cigarette smoke tar onto cellulose and then exposed that to high levels of nitrous acid for three hours in an enclosed environment. They found that this exposure of the cigarette smoke residue to high levels of nitrous acid produced ten times the amount of TSNAs you'd observe in a space in which a cigarette had just been smoked where nitrous acid was not present.
I think we all know that TSNAs are going to be mostly the result of tobacco leaf combustion. Since not only do ecigs not burn anything, rather release a mist resulting from a heated liquid, but they don't contain actual tobacco in the device or cartridge there is no evidence to prove that:
a) any significant trace of nicotine is released through the vapor.
b) that the vapor itself adheres to any surface, thus producing an exposure risk
c) that there is any risk of second-hand exposure to ecig vapor, let alone third-hand.
Conveniently enough, the researches reached a conclusion that would appeal to caring parents - your biggest risk is touching or inhaling dust from carpets that have been exposed to indoor smoking, hence crawling babies are at the biggest risk of exposure.
This is the sort of junk science that even lay people recognize as not being sound and it should be called out as such. The fact that these scientists have to resort to such extreme testing measures, that don't even remotely reflect real world scenarios and conditions, simply to yield a modicum of evidence that this presents a "danger" should be enough to prove these findings don't hold up when applied in real situations.
