Should E-cigarettes Be Banned in Washington?

Two memebers of Washington DC council suggest to ban electronic cigarettes saying they may be dangerous for non-smokers. E-cigarettes became very popular today because they are used to help quit smoking tobacco. Smoker may choose among a number of flavors and here tobacco is not used at all. E-cigarettes are equipped with battery-operated inhalers which heat nicotine into vapor which has same effects as tobacco cigarettes do.

E-cigarettes produce no smoke and namely this characteristics helped them avoid state regulations.

In Washington it is a normal thing to see citizens smoking e-cigarettes in such public places as bars and restaurants. However, city councils  Yvette M. Alexander and David Grosso suggest to prohibit that. They want all kinds of cigarettes to be banned in public places. Nowadays, in Washington functionates a law that prohibits smoking in public places.

Alexander says smoking e-cigarettes is similar to smoking tobacco and the difference is that we do not know negative effects of e-cigarettes and therefore we cannot put on risk non-smokers.

Today in the USA many states want to ban e-cigarettes. In 2011 the FDA said it would regulate e-cigarettes as it does tobacco. Specialists say that studies of e-cigarettes effects are needed in order to know if they are dangerous for people who inhale their vapors.

In turn, manufacturers of electronic cigarettes claim that their products have no negative effects on smokers because they do not contain chemicals that tobacco cigarettes have. Big Cigs, the producer of e-cigarettes in the USA, says that with such statements tobacco industry wants to undervalue e-cigs industry.

Alexander says that e-cigarettes do not help stop smoking as they contain nicotine and besides this atrract more people.