By Grant Wengeler,
There is much controversy over smoking e-cigarettes, or “vaping,” on school campuses.
Students at SFCC are not allowed to smoke e-cigarettes outside of designated smoking areas.
E-cigarettes are a device where smokers can vape nicotine as opposed to smoking tobacco.
“There’s a correlation between state or city funding to SFCC and if they allow e-cigarettes,” Josh Jamerson, President of Smartsmoke, a Spokane based electronic cigarette company, said. “The Opera House, the Convention Center, the Spokane Arena, those are government buildings paid for by the city and they don’t allow the use of electronic cigarettes.”
Concern rises from whether e-cigarettes are safer to use than traditional cigarettes.
“If you look at the specific ingredients, there are over 4000 known chemicals in tobacco,” said Jamerson. “If you look at the very minimal ingredients in electronic cigarettes, it’s a pretty smart decision as to which is going to be the better choice.”
According to Maciej Goniewicz of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y, e-cigarettes, when adjusted to a higher voltage, can produce carbonyls.
These carbonyls include formaldehyde. If the voltage is set too high on an e-cigarette, formaldehyde levels can potentially reach the same levels as found in traditional cigarettes.
According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, formaldehyde is present already in both indoor, and outdoor air.
Formaldehyde it has been known to cause irritation of the nose, eyes, and throat.
In 1987 the US Environmental protection agency classified formaldehyde as a possible human carcinogen under unusually extreme or prolonged exposure.
With a mission to improve the smoking population’s health, Jamerson believes his work will simultaneously help the economy as well.
“The long term effects of the electronic cigarette industry is economic change,” Jamerson said, “Let’s say 50 years from now everything continues to go as it already has, there’s going to be less deaths associated with tobacco smoking, and there’s going to be less hospitalizations.”
More than $96 billion a year are spent on health care due to tobacco, according to the Center of Disease Control.
“The healthcare industry is a very large financial industry in the United States,” said Jamerson, “If you have a ton of people who aren’t smoking anymore, that money is being reinjected into our economy. People are feeling better and being more active.”
“I don’t want to spend money on cigarettes,” said Satam Alwabli, a student vaper at SFCC. “Now that I have an e-cig I don’t want to smoke anymore.”
Jamerson believes the e-cigarette industry will destroy the traditional cigarette industry within the next decade, but fears government intervention, such as Washington State Bill #5573, which raises the legal age to buy tobacco and all e-cigarette products to 21.
“Raising the age on tobacco and vaping products is a pretty good debate,” said Travis Jent, president and owner of Vapor Lounge. “We’re having some trouble because these products are making their way into youth’s hands.”
“An 18 year old is an adult, obviously they can enlist in the military, they make their own choices,” Jent said. “If we are willing to put different adult responsibilities on them, why can’t they make adult decisions for themselves?”
Under Washington law, smoking is considered a privilege rather than a right.
“We have a double standard here,” Jent said. “We have an 18 year old who can enlist and fight for our country, why would we take the decision to vape away from them? We have to determine if they are adults or not.”
Both Vapor Lounge and Smartsmoke have a strict policy against selling to minors, and even non-smokers.
“If an 18 year old walks into one of our stores and has never smoked cigarettes, we will send them away,” Jamerson said. “Our mission is to turn smokers into nonsmokers.”
In 2012, the Center of Disease Control estimated that 14% of high school students smoked cigarettes, while 2.8% vaped.
“For someone who isn’t a smoker,” said Jent, “I’d really have to ask them why they want to start. It’s a subject I’ve always really been troubled with.”
Despite Jent’s wish to keep non- smokers away from vaping, one in ten high school students have reported trying e-cigarettes, according to the CDC, and the number of high schoolers using e-cigarettes doubled between 2011 and 2012.
“For 18 year olds it’s a good rule, but if it becomes 21 then they will have to work to hide their cigarettes,” said Alwabli.
Another bill associated with vaping is Washington state Bill 1458, which includes making product sampling and online purchases illegal within the state of Washington.
According to Jamerson, if the bill is successfully passed, all currently listed e-cigarette flavors will be banned, and only tobacco flavors will be allowed. On top of this, a 95% fair market value vapor tax will be added to all vapor related devices.
“When it comes to banning flavors, I think it’s absurd to say that adults don’t like the flavors,” Jamerson said. “They assume they are only a way to market to younger people. If there wasn’t a demand from adults for these flavors, and they didn’t enjoy them, then we wouldn’t have them.”
“The rule that you can’t smoke cigarettes around campus is good so the buildings don’t smell,” said Alwabli. “But vapes don’t leave a permanent smell. The smell they have is more fruity.”
The use of electronic cigarettes at SFCC remains restricted and is punishable by a $30 fine. The only way to avoid this fine is to both smoke and vape within designated areas.