Herbert A. Gilbert may have created the first electronic cigarette in 1963, but leave it up to the millenials to popularize the technology-dependent smoking device. If we didn’t have enough gadgets in our lives already, electronic cigarettes will add another battery to the lot and require a new assortment of regulations to regain control.  

The e-cigarette is becoming increasingly popular, especially among kids, and is currently lacking enough regulation. Laws surrounding cigarettes do not apply to this new electric form, and e-cigarette users might think they have found a loophole, but they should know that politicians will be close behind.

The e-cigarette is an inhaler meant to simulate or substitute tobacco smoking. It can be used for quitting, but is also providing a way for people to regain smoking rights in areas where they were previously prohibited. 

People can smoke e-cigarettes in places where normal cigarette smoking is not allowed, such as inside buildings. Advocates lean on the fact that e-cigarettes produce water vapor rather than harmful smoke, but that doesn’t make them right. 

It’s a sad truth for some, but smoking, regardless of whether it results in second-hand smoke, does not belong inside buildings such as schools, churches, grocery stores or malls. We understand that e-cigarette smoke is harmless, but smoking stereotypes have not changed. The image people associate with smoking is negative, and we have our culture to blame for that. 

However, the battle to force e-cigarettes out of certain locations will not be easy due to the fact that the vapor is harmless to bystanders. But we should easily be able to crack down on e-cigarette use among children. 

Before the popularity of the e-cigarette, tobacco use among young people was rather constant. According to a scholarly article from the National Center for Biotechnology Information, e-cigarette use among kids, grades 6-12, increased from 3.3 percent in 2011 to 6.8 percent in 2012. 

Additionally, 10 percent of those kids who used an electronic cigarette have never smoked, contributing to the idea that e-cigarettes might be a new gateway drug. Also, the lack of regulations in some states allows kids to purchase them legally. This leads to a pretty bitter conclusion, and politicians need to get their heads around this problem fast before it causes too much harm. 

Unfortunately, politicians might have a harder time fighting e-cigarettes now than they did fighting cigarettes in the 1970s. Part of the externality created by cigarettes has been eliminated with the e-cigarette’s lack of secondhand smoke. An externality is created when the sale of a good affects someone who is not directly doing the buying or selling. E-cigarettes make smoking seem more acceptable, but the nicotine they contain can make them as addictive as real cigarettes, which are nearly as addictive as heroin or cocaine. 

Politicians may want to look at the past and see what the government did regarding cigarette policies in order to handle this new beast. In the long run e-cigarettes should not be exempt from the cigarette’s regulations because, regardless of their effects on the general public, smoking will never be healthy.