San Francisco Confirms It Has Never Been About Health

The second most viewed item on this blog last year was one detailing how e-cig use could be banned everywhere in California. It was picked up by news aggregator sites like Reddit, where commenters said I was an alarmist and being sensationalistic.

From SFGate.

Smoking electronic cigarettes in bars, restaurants and businesses will soon be illegal in San Francisco, after the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to treat the relatively new product like combustible cigarettes. 

The legislation by Supervisor Eric Mar is intended to limit children's use of the nicotine product, which he and other supporters contend has been marketed heavily toward young people, and to protect all members of the public from the secondhand aerosol emitted by the devices, he said.

Well, I did say that the myth of passive vaping would be added to the myth of passive smoking at some point, but I thought they'd at least have the courtesy to wait for the junk science to be produced first. These guys are in a hurry, though.

Under the legislation, San Francisco would include e-cigarettes in its strict antismoking laws, banning them in most public places besides curbside on city streets, requiring sellers to secure a special permit, and prohibiting their sale in pharmacies and other businesses where tobacco sales are banned. The board will vote on it once more next week, and it will become law in April after the mayor, a supporter, signs it.

April, you say? It was April last year when I published my piece about something that might happen in California. Less than a year later, and the process is actually starting to happen for real.

What a sensationalistic alarmist I am, eh?

Mar puffed on an e-cigarette as he presented the legislation. 

"Sorry for poisoning all of you ..." [citation needed]

Whereas Superviser Eric Mar is not an alarmist at all.

... but it's really important to show - I have a banana-flavored one and a peach-flavored one ... they are really targeted at young people and right now it's not regulated," he said, ...

Nor sensationalistic, either, because everybody knows that only kids like bananas and peaches. Adults never, ever touch them.

... saying the product could create a new generation of nicotine addicts.

Err.

Being San Fantasyland, the article wouldn't be complete without a rent-a-quote from the deranged conspiracy theory-addicted mechanic.

Just because they are safer than cigarettes doesn't make them a healthier alternative, [Stan Glantz, head of UCSF's Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education ] said.

Course not, Stan, that would be completely illogical!

Do check out the comments under the line, where many are punching the air in delight at the full force of the law being employed so they no longer have to very occasionally experience a faint odour. Harm, you say? Who cares? It's only ever been about odours, not health.

I suppose we should take it as a positive that the pretence has finally been dropped.