Tobacco.org

BEATO: E-cigs: politically correct political incorrectness? 

In 1961, G.D. Searle & Company gave us the Pill. And in 2004, a Chinese company called Ruyan created electronic cigarettes.

Over the last year, these devices, which deliver nicotine to their users in the form of vapor instead of smoke, have grown increasingly prominent. In July, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it had concerns about the safety of these products, citing the “detectable levels of known carcinogens and toxic chemicals” it found when testing two popular brands. In September, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have made it illegal to sell electronic cigarettes there. Leo DiCaprio, Tom Petty and everyone’s favorite style icon, Kevin Federline, have all been photographed “vaping” in public.

Unlike other cigarette alternatives, e-cigarettes don’t just retain the nicotine of the original article, but also the prop value. . . .

For all its virtues, however, the e-cigarette is still the tobacco equivalent of a toupee. From across a room, or even from across a medium-sized table if the room is dark enough, it may be fairly convincing. But it’s still silly. That people are currently buying them so readily only proves just how effectively anti-smoking advocates have glamorized cigarettes in recent years. . . .

Still, a potential vaping epidemic is not without an enormous upside. As smoking declined, people needed something to do with their hands, and not everyone wanted to be a heroin addict or knit sweaters. Nature abhors a vacuum, however, and to fill the void in our lives, we took to texting and tweeting. Now look where we are. We spell “are you” RU. We apprehend the world in 140-character lifebites. Whatever trace amounts of diethylene glycol may lurk within the cartridges of your favorite e-cigarette, they can’t be any less healthy than spending hours each day trading quips about Balloon Boy with a handful of virtual strangers.

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