Should Utah’s e-cigarrette laws be amended?

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<p style=”line-height: 1.15; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;”>Some electronic cigarettes look like little flutes, while others look like the genuine articles they’re designed to replace. According to Craig Youngblood, president of e-cigarette company InLife, “They are electronic, alternative smoking devices that simulate the sensation of smoking. They do not expose the user, or others close by, to harmful levels of cancer-causing agents and other dangerous chemicals normally associated with traditional tobacco products.”</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.15; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;”>However, though many claim that e-cigs provide a clean, alternative way to consume nicotine, the Utah Indoor Clean Air Act still prohibits their indoor usage. In fact, the law even subjects electronic cigarettes to the same restrictions as analog cigarettes.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.15; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;”>According to the <a href=”http://slcohealth.org/programs/tobaccoprevention/UICAA.html”>Utah Indoor Clean Air Act</a>, an “E-Cigarette” is any “electronic oral device that provides vapor of nicotine or other substance; and which simulated smoking through its use or through inhalation of the device.” This includes an oral device that’s “composed of a heating element, battery, or electronic circuit,” and is sold as an e-cigarette, e-cigar, e-pipe, or “any “other product name, or description, if the function of the product meets the definition of a ‘E-Cigarette.’”</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.15; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;”>Yet, weren’t these e-cigs designed to be cleaner substitutes to smoking? Is it really fair then to treat these smoking cessation devices the same way as the counterparts which they were designed to help people quit?</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.15; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;”>Between March of 2013 and March 2014, <a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/17/more-ecigarette-injuries_n_5165480.html”>there have been more than 50 complaints about e-cigs filed to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration</a>. The complaints claimed that e-cigarettes were responsible for cardiovascular problems, allergic reactions, coughing fits, dizziness, sore throats, and even nose bleeds amongst other things.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.15; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;”>One such complaint claimed that, “My 4-year-old has had a raspy voice since he started but I really didn’t think anything of it till last night my husband was just puffing away on that thing for hours and I woke up wheezing and unable to breathe.”</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.15; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;”>Though e-cig proponents are still fighting to undo some of the restrictions and bans, it seems that lawmakers may have been right about them in the first place.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.15; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;”>”As we’re getting better and better understanding of the chemistry of these things, they’re looking worse and worse,” said Stanton Glantz, the director of UCSF’s Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. “You can be a lot less bad as a cigarette and still be pretty bad.”</span></p>

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