The metabolites of MDMA are thought to be neurotoxic. Though it's known the chemical itself is not. In a sane world, we would use drug discovery to find drugs with similar effects but without the toxic metabolites. But we love to punish people for their vices, so there is no research on creating safer alternatives to existent drugs.
> And even in the areas where people are creating safer alternatives (e-cigarettes), there are politicians nearby ready to use their banhammers.
I don't think this ("banhammers") is a fair comparison.
To my knowledge, most if not all of the major regulation regarding e-cigarettes is around restricting the sale to minors or restricting the areas in which they can be used, as opposed to a blanket ban on the sale or possession of e-cigarettes.
All of that is analogous to existing regulation regarding cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana[0]. The only difference from marijuana is that we're starting from the other end of the spectrum (zero regulation) instead of starting from a blanket ban, but the theoretical convergence point is the same: use of marijuana and e-cigarettes are permitted, but regulated in some way around the age of purchaser and location (setting) of use.
You can make the argument that restricting the use of e-cigarettes indoors (or by minors) is incorrect, but people have been arguing that 18-year-olds should be able to drink (like in the rest of the world)[1] or use marijuana, so the details of the regulation regarding those aren't necessarily perfect or justified either.
A better example of "banhammers" would be Salvia divinorum, which was legal in every (or almost every) state ten years ago, and is now prohibited in 8 states (and there were attempts to prohibit it outright, like marijuana, in several more)[2].
[0] in (e.g.) Colorado, where recreational sale and use is permitted.
> All of that is analogous to existing regulation regarding cigarettes
But this is why e-cigarette campaigners say that politicians are just meddling out of personal distaste, rather than any scientific backing. The two core reasons why cigarettes cannot be smoked indoors are:
1) Doing so (potentially) causes deleterious effects to people who inhale the second-hand smoke. At the very least, it can be agreed that it's not preferable to breathe smoke.
2) It makes it likelier that the smoker will give up their dangerous addiction.
Neither case can be particularly easily applied to e-cigarettes, which emit harmless water vapour, and are to many smokers a means of giving up their dangerous smoking addiction.
I must say I agree with the e-cigarette campaigners that attempts to apply the same laws to e-cigarettes as cigarettes is just yet another example of politicians wanting to control something absent of any scientific proof that they need to do so.
While many may emit water vapour, I believe there's studies which show that there are non-negligible amounts of other substances in some e-cigarette vapours. I do not think there's enough scientific data to make a long-term decision; perhaps just regulating the manufacturers so that we know what's putting what into the air is enough?
My personal opinion is that no matter the safety, I cannot cope with the smell of e-cigarettes, having been around people who use them indoors, and would like to have at least some recourse for being forced to smell it all day in my workplace. If vapers manage to convince companies that it is their "right" to vape in the workplace, I will not be able to work. I would thus like some regulation around using e-cigarettes in places where I have little choice to be.
I don't think that either smell nor "non-water compounds" are reasons to regulate e-cigarettes tighter than we regulate perfumes, colognes, or spray deodorants.
Similar regulation for all four seems reasonable to me.
Those things don't tend to protrude more than a few inches, maximum, from a person's body, and there's an established culture whereby people will be reprimanded if they do.
Quite a few perfumes give me a migraine with even fairly limited exposure. By the time I notice the smell enough to run away, it's usually too late. If someone is wearing axe body spray I have to immediately leave the room.
This is the reason I stopped going to malls. The olfactory assault emanating from some of those stores is quite unpleasant and will give me migraines. Applies to the weekend bar scene, too, but I was never wont to hang around drunk people anyway.
I think it's reasonable to ask vapers around you to take it elsewhere if it bothers you. Similarly, if someone is wearing a very strong perfume that bothers you, take it up with them. As a vaper, I'll generally ask first before vaping in a closed area, but if I don't, I'm totally okay with someone asking me to take it elsewhere. If you run into large groups of people who don't, those people are just dicks. That doesn't mean we should start legislating away everything that's irritating to some group of people.
It seems to me that the argument for legislation seems to come from the idea that smoking is bad, smokers are bad people, so anything that looks like smoking is also bad.
Aye, it probably does come from that. I'll wait to see what becomes of "vaper culture" before making an opinion, but before then, I'm honestly not going to get involved either way on this process.
Okay, fair enough. Have you tried asking the vapers if they would mind not smoking them indoors? I know I've stopped doing so in confined conference rooms after a coworker commented that they didn't like the smell.
I appreciate it sucks that vaping is just one more thing which intrudes on your personal space and freedoms, but so do so many things at the office, from people chatting, to coughing, to cracking their knuckles or delighting you with the irritating buzz of their headphones. I'm not really sure that e-cigarettes warrant regulation any more than any of the other annoyances that are encountered throughout the day.
EDIT: Also, for anyone interested in learning more about the science of e-cigarette safety, Dr. Siegel of the Boston University School of Public Health pretty vociferously supports e-cigarettes and writes a blog on the science and politics of the matter:
> Have you tried asking the vapers if they would mind not smoking them indoors?
Yes. Unfortunately, some people do not seem to care about others, especially when they see what they're doing as "harmless". There seems to be a certain militancy among some vapers that doesn't exist around most other things.
Wow, arseholes. It's hard to recommend any course of action really, because I can't think of any coworkers I've ever had who'd refuse a reasonable request like that. I guess I'd offer to buy them some flavoured nicotine gum and ask them to try that for a while?
The apathy is not a cigarette/e-cig problem, sounds more like a personality trait. A little mindfulness would do our culture good(real practice, not the Time magazine version).
I posit the militancy is a possible result of persecution.
The base is usually vegetable glycerin [0] and/or propylene glycol [1], sometimes a low amount of distilled water or alcohol is added (I think up to 10%; usually with glycerin to lower it's viscosity) and finally food-grade flavours for taste. And of course nicotine in varying amounts from usually 0-36 mg/ml (36mg being rather rare in EU but I heard vapers in the US sometimes go that high)
Harmless is a very strong word. The Clearstream study [2] concluded that it "could be more unhealty to breath air in big cities compared to staying in the same room with someone who is vaping.", which is great but wouldn't make me use the word "harmless".
As a vaper for over 2y now after being a smoker for 8y, I obviously disagree with regulating vaping the same way smoking is, but imo we need some kind of regulation, sadly, as people are idiots.
There is everything from Chinese liquids of strongly varying degrees of quality (that was the problem with the 2009 FDA study) to people who think they can just blow huge clouds in restaurants.
My personal policy is not to vape at all where people are eating and anywhere else indoors, unless it's specifically vaper friendly, to stealth vape (a technique where you inhale deeply and breathe out slowly, avoiding visible vapour).
Google for David Nutt in the UK. An scientific expert in the area of drugs. British government asked him to conduct a study of the relative dangers. Didn't like the result. They sacked him.
Cannot locate the item right now, but didn't the entire brain-trust leave with him, too? Sucks working for an org that ignores the results that don't suit their ends.
Heh, not only that but the person who fired him got sacked for doing so [1] and Nutt ended up helping start what is, essentially, a political competitor to the organization he was thrown out of [2].
And worse people cycle through novel compounds to avoid drugs laws to create "legal highs" which have bery little data to show how safe or not they are.
