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Restaurants Face Growing Challenge As Diners Fire Up E-Ciggs

  • Spence Cooper
  • October 24, 2013

Since e-cigarettes were invented in China in 2003, U.S. sales have exploded and hit roughly 5 million last year, up from 50,000 units in 2008.

Case for Electronic Cigarette - E-cig Holder

USA Today notes some in the medical community see possible benefits: “E-cigarettes may hold promise as a smoking-cessation method,” concluded Michael Siegel of the Boston University School of Public Health in a study published in April 2011 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

He and two co-researchers found that two-thirds, or 67%, of the 222 smokers queried said they smoked less after using e-cigarettes for six months and nearly a third, or 31%, said they kicked the tobacco habit.

But Dr. Robert Greene, who treats lung cancer patients at the Palm Beach Cancer Institute, said e-cigarettes are potentially a health hazard. “There really is no information about whether they’re safe or not, and that’s part of the problem,” said Greene.

“To make that claim is obviously ludicrous,” said Ray Story, an e-cigarette distributor and CEO of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association. “At the end of the day when you look at an e-cigarette, is it addictive? Nicotine is addictive.”

E-Cigarettes in Public Places

Since smoking regular cigarettes has been banned in most public places, seeing someone smoking a cigarette at a restaurant, not realizing it’s an electronic cigarette, can turn a few heads, and even illicit complaints from non-smoking diners.

Chez Bruce Restaurant

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Mail Online points out that Bruce Poole, the chef-proprietor of the exclusive Chez Bruce in Wandsworth, south-west London, considered banning them in his Michelin-starred restaurant.

“We weren’t particularly happy about this when it happened for the first time quite recently, because [the e-cigarette] looked real and even gave off an admittedly odorless vapor,” he said.

A survey by Action on Smoking and Health says 700,000 people in the UK used e-cigarettes last year, with the figure expected to exceed one million this year.

As the use of e-cigarettes increases in popularity, restaurant owners will have to decide whether they will allow patrons to puff on them in their establishments.

The use of e-cigarettes in public is increasingly coming under fire. USA Today notes more and more cities and states are banning e-cigarette use in smoke-free places.

Amtrak has banned their use on trains, and the Navy banned them below decks in submarines. Last year, the U.S. Department of Transportation proposed a ban aboard airplanes because of concerns about health risks from the vapors.

Risks From 2nd Hand Vapor

E-cigarette users assume they’re just blowing out water vapor, and not harming anyone around them, but the FDA has issued an advisory identifying the “volatile” substances in the device.

According to FDA Advisory No. 2013-015, “Electronic cigarettes are not emission-free. E-cigarettes contain volatile organic substances, including propylene glycol, diethylene glycol, the same ingredient used in antifreeze, flavors and nicotine, and are emitted as mist or aerosol into indoor air.”

Smoking Cessation Chart

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“If several people are using e-cigarettes in a room at the same time, considerable indoor air pollution will accumulate and may result to harmful second-hand exposure,” the Advisory added.

GMA News reports the FDA cited studies showing these “ultrafine liquid particles” measuring less than 2.5 micrometer in diameter may penetrate deeply into the lungs, and the FDA said such ultrafine particles could be inhaled by non-users especially when used indoors.

Besides glycol, the main ingredient, e-cigarettes contain nicotine, flavors, tobacco-specific nitrosamines, volatile organic compounds, acetone, form aldehyde, acetaldehyde, benzo(a)pyrene as well as silicate and various metal particles are present.

The particle size is between 100 and 600 nanometers, which is comparable to the particle size found in tobacco smoke of conventional cigarettes. The FDA concedes that levels of most harmful substances are lower in the e-cigarettes than in conventional cigarette smoke, but they do accumulate in indoor air.

“Five other metals” copper, magnesium, lead, chromium, and manganese” were present in the same amount, while potassium and zinc were present at lower levels. Nickel and chromium are carcinogenic and lead is suspected to be carcinogenic,” the Advisory noted.

“Second-hand exposure to e-cigarette emission which may lead to adverse health effects cannot be excluded.”

War on E-Cigarettes?

Jacob Sullum with The New York Post recently characterized opposition to electronic cigarettes as “The Lunatic War on E-Cigarettes.”

Sullum suggests whether or not you see the development of increased e-cigarette sales as an opportunity or a threat depends on “whether you view the matter rationally or through a fog of prejudice that makes anything resembling a cigarette look sinister, regardless of the risks it actually poses.”

Health Benefits of Electronic Cigarettes

(Source)

Sollum argues e-cigarettes allows smokers to avoid the toxins and carcinogens generated by tobacco combustion, which significantly reduces the health hazards they face. “There is no serious scientific dispute on this point, although people who should know better often pretend otherwise.”

Sollum cites the CDC, which claims “e-cigarettes appear to have far fewer of the toxins found in smoke compared to traditional cigarettes.”He also refers to Boston University public-health professor Michael Siegel, who notes that “we actually have a much better idea what is in electronic cigarette vapor than what is in tobacco smoke”

Sollum concludes that those who oppose e-cigarettes do so because they are plagued by an irrational fear that “a product whose main selling point is avoiding the scary hazards and offensive stench of smoking somehow will make smoking more appealing.”

Deciding Factors For Restaurant Owners

Whether e-cigarettes pose less of a risk to smokers compared to regular cigarettes will be totally irrelevant to restaurant owners, whose main concern will be with the non-smoking diners who constitute the majority of a restaurant’s customers.

Because the knowledge of any possible risks from 2nd hand vapors emitted from e-cigarettes will ultimately force restaurant owners to ban e-cigarettes in their establishments.

The Food and Drug Administration is expected to propose regulations for e-cigarettes by the end of this month.

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