Friday, November 23, 2018



The indoor vaping ban

The government has announced plans to including vaping in the Smokefree Environments Act, banning it from restaurants, bars, and workplaces. Which is fair enough. I don't really care what people do to themselves with informed consent, but when you're emitting clouds of noxious crap, that no longer applies, and its perfectly reasonable to tell people to take that shit outside. As for advertising and display restrictions, that should depend on the harm they do. The evidence on that seems to be that they're significantly less harmful than conventional cigarettes, and that supports a lower level of regulation (and in fact, greater availability to allow for harm reduction). The Ministry of Health's Regulatory Impact Statement goes over these issues, and it looks like they support exempting e-cigarettes from most of the display restrictions. But it also recommends not including vaping in the Smokefree Environments Act, so the government has chosen a much tougher stance there - which suggests they may be more restrictive on display as well. It will be interesting to see what legislation finally emerges.