By Jay Galletly
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Don’t panic if you see a
passenger puffing away as you make your way between the gates at Las Vegas’
McCarran Airport. While traditional
tobacco products such as cigarettes, cigars and pipes are forbidden by law at every
airport in the US, e-cigarettes currently are not. While you're not allowed to use e-cigs on planes, e-cigs are
allowed in a number of airports across the country, including Phoenix Sky Harbor,
Miami International, Tampa International, Minneapolis St. Paul, and even Ronald
Reagan National Airport in Washington DC.
The FDA has not Wade in Yet
As far as the FDA is concerned,
e-cigarettes are still not on their radar screen. Therefore it has been left to the management at
airports across the country to decide whether or not to allow e-cigarettes to be
smoked on the premises. This legal grey area
has led to a number of different rules at airports. While some allow e-cigarette smokers to puff away just
about anywhere, while others restrict smoking to designated areas.
It’s a Go in Some Airports!
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| Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Arlington County, Virginia (near Washington, D. C.) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Some airports, such as Philadelphia
International and LAX forbid smoking of e-cigarettes anywhere on the property, others
like New York’s LaGuardia and JFK airports permit e-cigarette us e in some terminals
but not in others. Currently the State of New York does not have any
laws in place restricting the use of vaping products indoors, preferring to let
individual business owners the freedom of choice to decide whether or not to permit
e-cigs.
According to an article in USA
Today, “New York City and Chicago are considering laws to ban e-cigarette
use in public spaces, treating the device the same as tobacco cigarettes. If the
measure passes in New York that means e-cigarette use will no longer be allowed
in any of the airports' public spaces. The
New York Port Authority oversees the airports and bans e-cigarette use in the terminals
it operates, but it leases some terminals to airlines and private companies, which
can have their own policies on e-cigarette use.”
No FDA Reg’s Yet!
Currently the FDA doesn’t have
any regulations on the books restricting e-cigarette use. In fact the entire rationale
behind banning cigarettes in restaurants, airports and other public places was
 |
| FDA's War on Electronic Cigarettes (Photo credit: lindsay-fox) |
to
protect non-smokers from the dangers of second hand smoke. Many public officials are reacting in a knee jerk
fashion to recommend that e-cigs be treated like the real McCoy and ban their use
in public. Yet even New York City health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, admitted
in a Forbes magazine interview that he could not say whether or not e-cigarettes
were hazardous to the health of those smoking them, let alone whether or not they
produce hazardous second hand smoke. Yet
in the next breath, he states, "These things are
really exploding around the world. We will have more information in the future,"
Farley said. "I think the question for the committee today is, do you want
to wait?"
Real Scientist get it Right!
But that doesn’t mean that everyone in
the scientific community agrees with him.
In fact, Dr. Gilbert Ross of the American Council on Sciences and Health
publicly stated that any law restricting the use of e-cigarettes and other vaping
devices without due scientific scrutiny are both unnecessary and hyper-regulatory. "It
really will accomplish nothing except to make more former smokers return to actual
toxic cigarettes."
For now the rules governing e-cigarette
smoking in airports and other public places are arbitrary and highly politicized. Yet in other countries such as Great Britain vaping
is permitted in regulated airp
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| The FDA Drug Decision Panel (Photo credit: DES Daughter) |
ort zones, such as Heathrow Terminal 4. In a survey of 1,000 airline travelers by global
travel site Skyscanner, 57 percent of people surveyed responded that they would
not object to airports designating “vaping areas” for e-cigarette users. When you consider that an estimated 1.3 million
people in this country are known consumers of e-cigarettes, you would think that
politicians would realize that they vote too.
In this article, I have covered how a
lack of FDA rules and regulations has led to a wide array of rule in airports across
the US and around the world. Currently many airports in the US both allow and
restrict ecigarette usage. Most of the ban usage is not based on any scientific
findings, rather they are based on knee jerk or political posturing by trying
to lump ecigarettes vapors in with the negative side effects of second hand
smoke. If you felt that this article was helpful, share it with a friend. If
you have something to add, enter it in the comment section below. Thanks for
sharing this time with me. Until next time, enjoy a new way with VIAe.
Jay Galletly is the CEO and one of the
founders of VIAe ecigarette company in North Caroline. He is one of the
pioneers of the industry and was instrumental in the growth and success of
other ecigarette companies before starting VIAe.
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The problem with politicians is that they are only interested in getting their faces on TV. As a rule they don't take the time to consider the facts. It looks to be an up hill battle for e-cig users in this country.
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