Why Vapers Want the Feds to Regulate E-Cigarettes

New York City just kicked e-cigarettes' electronic ass all over town. The city council overwhelmingly voted yesterday to ban vaping everywhere traditional smoking is already outlawed, which in the Big Apple includes restaurants, bars, business offices, public parks, beaches, outdoor dining, concerts, and shows.

I heart New York as much as anyone, but this e-cig move isn't going to help buck the claim that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is turning the great city into a "nanny state." Yesterday's decision was rash at best, and irresponsible at worst.

The council voted 43 to 8 to ban the digital devices not to protect against any health risks—the science is still under debate—but because they look like regular cigarettes. Vaping in public could glamorize the act of "smoking" and confuse New Yorkers who had just started get to used to the idea that cigarettes are bad and totally uncool. That's the argument they're going with.

The nonsensicalness is hard to ignore. I mean, the city’s current smoking ban is called the Smoke-Free Air Act, and the very point of electronic cigarettes is that they are smoke-free. They're vaporizers. This is part of what makes them a healthier choice than traditional smokes and thus a tool to help addicts quit, say their ardent advocates. So shouldn't the health gurus behind the no-smoking act be psyched on the future-cigs, instead of relegating users to puff on their vapes in a haze of secondhand smoke?

"This is a bill that was rushed through in less than a month and passed without any consideration to scientific issues," Jeff Stier, a senior fellow for the National Center for Public Policy Research told me. "And that same dynamic will take place in localities around the country."

This is what most worries e-cig advocates. Since the devices aren't yet regulated by the Food and Drug Administration yet, cities and states are rushing to enact their own bans, and the local laws are generally more stringent than federal regulations. For its part, the FDA is working on drafting its e-smoking rules now, which means slogging through the contradictory research on the devices' health benefits and risks and looking for medical proof one way or the other.

"We expect federal regulators to be held to a scientific standard. We didn't see that in New York," Stier said. Nor in Utah, North Dakota, or New Jersey,* which have also lumped vaping into their smoking restrictions. Or in the next battleground metropolises, Chicago and Los Angeles, where there are proposed bans on the table.

So the irony is, the pro-vaping camp is hoping that the Feds come out and regulate e-cigarettes as soon as possible. As such, advocates are descending on Washington to lobby lawmakers to hurry it up (and not come down too hard on the vapes).

Meanwhile in New York, digital smokers will be watching the clock. The ban goes into effect in four months, and then restaurants and businesses have another six months to put up "No Vaping" or "No E-Cigarette" signs wherever smoking is prohibited.

*An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Washington, DC had extended its smoking ban to e-cigarettes.

@meghanneal