Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s newest public health campaign involves banning electronic cigarettes.
New legislation proposes to treat electronic cigarettes just like tobacco. One of the new proposals would ban the sale of electronic cigarettes in retail establishments. Another proposal would ban the sale of electronic cigarettes and most flavored refills in so-called “tobacco bars” that were opened after 2001, Yahoo News reports.
Senate Majority Leader Ellen M. Corbett has proposed similar legislation in California.
"SB 648 limits the use of e-cigarettes as they pose unknown health risks in a public space, We must always stand on the side of public health since we still do not yet fully understand the safety of chemicals present in e-cigarette vapors or when nicotine itself leaks from the products. It simply makes sense to regulate e-cigarettes as a tobacco product when they are already prohibited in many public spaces,” Corbett said in a statement .
Some people do not agree with the proposed legislation in New York.
"This is a de facto ban on electronic cigarettes,” Doctor Michael Siegel told The Gothamist . "Pretty much all electronic cigarettes are flavored; they're essentially flavored products. You're basically telling a bunch of ex-smokers to go back to cigarettes.”
There is some degree of uncertainty about whether or not electronic cigarettes are safe.
“The FDA is concerned about the safety of these products and how they are marketed to the public,” Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D., commissioner of food and drugs, said in a 2009 press release .
Ray Story sued the FDA in 2010 after the FDA tried to block the import of electronic cigarettes from China.
“The public will have a much less harmful alternative to tobacco products,” Story told the New York Times . “Wherever they’re sold, we are going to be sold.”
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