Are Electronic Cigarettes Legal?
If a lawyer was asked “are the best electronic cigarette brands legal?”, he or she wouldn’t bat an eyelid to say yes it is. To be fair, electronic cigarettes are not illegal, as long as they are not smoked or sold. It is their “sale”, or “smoking” that opens up the Pandora’s Box. Unfortunately, law makers around the world are confused about this product because they do not have many studies about it to approve or condemn the product. Therefore, most countries have yet to take a call on electronic cigarette smoking. In other words, such smoking is legal for now in many countries, and even States of US, subject to certain conditions.
However, such smoking is not likely to go down too well with people. Almost everybody these days knows that cigarette smoke pollutes the environment because it contains toxic compounds like nicotine, carbon monoxide, ammonia, benzene, arsenic, aromatic amines, aromatic hydrocarbons, etc., which are unwittingly inhaled by passive smokers and wittingly taken in by active smokers. Such toxic compounds can lead to major health problems in both active as well as passive smokers. Therefore, health concerns were the main reasons behind enactment of Smoke-free Air Act in the US.
Since electronic cigarettes are “smoked” with nicotine present in the liquid used for such smoking, it won’t be easy convincing people that this cigarette is harmless. Whether the word “smoking” is applicable to such usage is questionable since no smoke is released into environment when e-cigarettes are “smoked”. Therefore, many would argue that electronic cigarette smoking is harmless. However, legal disputes and public interest litigations would be inevitable if the smoker chose to smoke such cigarettes in public places, even if law was by their side.
The US FDA did conduct a study in 2009 on electronic cigarettes, more specifically the contents of 19 different brands of cartridges that are smoked using electronic cigarettes. FDA’s studies revealed that many of these cartridges contained harmful compounds such as nicotine, diethylene glycol, tobacco specific nitrosamines, etc. This prompted FDA to seek a ban against electronic cigarette smoking classifying it under drugs and medical devices. Litigation ensued in 2010. However, FDA lost the case in January, 2011, and the decision on e-cigarette smoking became a matter that came within the jurisdiction of individual States and their counties.
As of date, e-cigarette review sites claim that smoking is legal in some States such as California, New Hampshire, Arizona, Maryland, Washington, Iowa, and even New York State. However, there are some restrictions such as ban on sale of e-cigarettes to minors and smoking of such cigarettes in public places.
Considering the controversy surrounding e-cigarette smoking, most airlines have banned them on flights. In this scenario, a person desirous of smoking e-cigarette should first confirm whether such smoking is not being done in any public place. Secondly, he or she should confirm that such cigarettes and cartridges are sold under a valid license. Lastly, as a matter of courtesy, they should confirm from people around them whether such smoking would be objectionable to them. After all, it is those passive smokers who would eventually be incurring healthcare costs, if such smoking was proved to be harmful to them. Even if one of them has any reservations, then it is best to avoid smoking the electronic cigarette in such a group instead of trying to convince them of its harmlessness. It would save the e-cigarette smoker a lot of time, and money on litigation.
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