on the topic of electronic cigarettes

Smoking in public should be banned. Anyone can light up a cigarette and give lung cancer to everyone around them, yet when I decide I want to have a swig of vodka in the comfort of my own school auditorium seat all of a sudden I'M the bad guy.

 

"Nicotine is a teratogen (capable of causing birth defects). Other developmental toxicity or reproductive toxicity risks are unknown. The information about nicotine as a carcinogen is inconclusive." - The Center for Disease Control and Prevention

 

So it causes birth defects in pregnant women. Doesn't really apply. The rest is unknown.

 

You're inhaling so much stuff you can't even see that I'm sure you don't know or simply ignrore because it doesn't affect your health. It's invisible smoke essentially, smaller more separated chemicals floating in the air. As soon as step outside you're breathing oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, nicotine, pollen, dirt, water vapour, other people's pheromones, other people's saliva, methane from other people's farts, hair, dust, cobwebs, faeces, etc.
Vapour in your face is noting new, and it doesn't affect you anymore outside than regular smoke would. It's worse if yore indoors because the fragments linger in the end area, outside the affects are neglible to normal air.

it's cigarette smoke, it's not a chemical bioweapon. As long as it is irregular exposure and outdoors, there is no statistical reason it would affect you, apart from the thoughts smoke evokes like being offended.

 

They actually make e-cigs now that are flavored and the smoke smells of various lovely things (vanilla, coffee, fruit scents). I don't believe they contain any nicotine, the smoke just seems to be a kind of vapor. I've not used them myself, I might have tried them but a few the people I hung around with in school this year were all passing theirs around and sharing them and ew. Personally though I think they are pretty cool, I'd love to see our generation use them instead of smoking. I also unfortunately have consumed enough adverts to find smoking a little sexy (while the actual medical action repulsive) so it's a nice compromise for me.

Although people have used them in theaters where I work which has caused understandable panic.

 

Fact: Nicotine is the only thing that people breathe in when they smoke. There are absolutely no other chemicals in a cigarette, especially not ones that could kill you

So what you're saying is that because it's not bad for me, that makes it okay for people to ? As I said earlier, I am well aware that it's not bad for me. That doesn't mean that I have no reason to find it annoying. The only difference may be that it's visible, but it's still impolite for an e-smoker to say, "FUCK YOU, IT'S JUST VAPOUR."*

*Exaggerated to compensate for the fact that you probably expected me to exaggerate in the first place.

I live in a city where I can't go on a simple bike ride without having to breathe second hand smoke the whole time. Maybe it's not as bad for me as if I were actually smoking, but shouldn't I at least be able to do something good for my body without having to expose it to something bad?

Also, it's way too easy to misspell cigarette. It's nearly impossible for me to type it without going "cigarrete" the first time. Why can't we just call them fags like in the olden days?

 

Oh, see, this explains why you're always pissy with me: you find me both irresistible and disgusting.

 

I'm saying you have no reason to feel threatened by smoke, so you have no reason to to demand they stop doing it in public. Dancing in public or talking to yourself is frowned upon but it isn't illegal nor should it be. If it was a cigarette i'd agree it is harmful, but e-cigs are different and come under different laws and effects.
I find people playing music on their phones annoying when i'm on the bus, but I don't demand them to stop doing it. Their right.
And if someone says '**** you it's just vapour' then that's rude but at that point it's about their ****** behaviour, not the e-cig. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. E-cigs don't annoy people, people annoy people. People are annoying not inanimate objects.

You're exposed to 'bad' stuff you inhale or consume into your body all the time. You're body is pretty smart and can process all the minor bad stuff away. The bad stuff is in small enough quantities that we don't all just die as soon as we breath it in. The reason cities are bad for pollution because of the tight, high buildings with high quantities of traffic passing through. They don't allow the car emissions to disperse away in the air easily as in small, open country roads. You'd be lucky to breath in cigarette smoke whilst riding on a bike, since the smog of the car emissions would be pelting your face. My mate use to cycle semi-professionally, he always told me about the these pollutions facts about car emissions for bikers.
You're more likely to die for carbon monoxide poisoning riding a recumbent bike than a regular one. Because you're closer to the exhaust. And cyclists are more likely to be affected by lung illnesses than pedestrians or drivers.
Honestly, if you're worried about what you're breathing in when it comes to riding, petition for lower carbon emissions on your roads.

 

Today I learned that saying, "Hey, would you mind putting that away? It's making me uncomfortable," is exactly the same as going, "HEY, STOP THAT! SOME OF US LIKE TO BREATHE, YOU E-SMOKING DIRTBAG!"

Like I said, I was exaggerating. My problem with that particular aspect of e-cigarettes isn't with people refusing to stop, it's with the fact that instead of just saying, "Sorry, no," they decide that they have to defend the fact that they won't stop by teaching me about all the reasons why what they're doing shouldn't bother me. Suppose I were to poke you once every five minutes. You would probably get annoyed and ask me to stop, right? I can do one of three things. The first is simple. I can apologize and stop. The second is also simple. I can continue poking you, but apologize for my refusal to stop. Besides those two choices, I can also continue to poke you while also lecturing you about why being poked one time every five minutes isn't such a big deal and that you should just get over it because I'm not really doing anything that's hurting you. Tell me, which of the latter two choices would you prefer?

Yes, but there's one major difference. I can ignore most of the "bad stuff" because it doesn't really have any tangible presence. I cannot ignore tobacco smoke because the smell is strong enough that I always smell it when I'm outside. Is that bad logic? Probably. Is it a good reason to prefer that people not smoke in open air? Even if it isn't, there's no way that you'll convince someone as selfish and closed minded as I am otherwise.

Actually, neither guns nor people kill people. Heart failure kills people. Bullets from guns fired by people have been known to cause heart failure, though.

 

Two things, 1) that still runs counter to your initial point that it's harmless and 2) that still runs counter to your point that it doesn't cause cancer because it's inconclusive. More importantly though, I'm being informative.

 

That's just bad observation if you can't tell the intentions and vocabulary used when making a request are different. Putting all requests under an umbrella idea of being aggressive is an anti-social perception.

I have thick skin. I was bullied for years and I work with autistic people, who actually do poke me repeatedly sometimes. How to tackle it? Talk, say it’s inappropriate, reinforce it is not acceptable. I would presume said person was autistic from that behaviour. I would cope. Actually I would probably joke, like in most awkward situations I can, trying to lighten the situation. Basically, diversion, alter the situation by changing the thoughts of my provocateur.
Don’t really understand all this anger people have towards single, minor annoyances. I get loads of them, or major ones. But when it’s obvious there are worse threats to your health, why does this minor one have you fixated? Just logically tough to understand for me I guess.

 

But you're the one who assumed that I was being aggressive. I was making of sarcastic to show where you misinterpreted my comment.

Would you mind cutting this part of your argument? I think I see why it's relevant and the point you're trying to make with it, but it's coming off like you're using it to redirect the conversation toward dealing with annoying behaviors rather than what I'm trying to say about how other people react when being asked to discontinue their annoying behaviors.

Like I said, that particular part of my annoyance has to do with the way e-smokers that I encounter handle it when I politely ask them to stop. They could just say, "Sorry, I'd rather not stop," and I'd be fine with that because I'm the same way and believe in treating others how you would like to be treated. I sing in public all the time and when people ask me to stop, I politely tell them that I won't and in the process apologize for (a) annoying them and (b) refusing to stop. Is that better or worse than talking their ear off about how they shouldn't have asked me to stop because singing in public isn't affecting anything apart from, in your words, the thoughts it evokes like being offended?