On April 22, at 12:01 a.m., New Orleans joined the rest of modern America and banned smoking in bars. Then they went a step further, becoming the 355th city to ban smoking e-cigarettes in public indoor spaces. There's so little we know about vaping, mainly because the technology and marketing move faster than research. Still, the stakes are high for those on both sides of the equation, from former smokers wary of having their substitute habit lumped in with cigarette addiction to bar and vape shop owners afraid of losing their businesses. While health officials lack enough data to definitively say whether e-cigarettes are harmful, there's enough information on both sides to argue the pitfalls and advantages of banning vaping in bars. Esquire spoke with a handful of experts to weigh the pros and cons of the Big Easy's ban.

Pro: 'This Could Re-Normalize Smoking'

Louisiana lawmakers wanted vaping banned alongside tobacco products for several reasons, but especially one: the renormalization, or re-introduction of smoking into the culture, as one Centers for Disease Control and Prevention representative, who spoke on background, told Esquire. There's a whole generation of Americans who've never seen people allowed to smoke in public, so if they're suddenly allowed to vape in public, the thinking goes, that could make it easier for people to view this as socially acceptable behavior. Remember, back in Don Draper's day, smoking in public was not only acceptable, but de rigueur. Nowadays smokers are essentially pariahs, required to step outside for their smoke break.

Another concern is the impact of secondhand aerosol on non-users, especially young children and pregnant women, says the CDC representative. Though e-cigarettes, which first hit the market in 2008, have yet to be proven dangerous, as the Federal Drug Administration advised last year, they still deliver highly addictive nicotine to the body. And while many ex-smokers claim that e-cigarettes helped them kick the habit, most of the CDC's data show that people are still using some form of tobacco, or what the organization calls "dual use."

Finally, and perhaps more critically, none of these hundreds of e-cigarette makers have applied to have their products labelled smoking cessation devices. Without official branding, treating them as tobacco seems the safest route, especially since a recent study from Portland State University found e-cigarettes contain more formaldehyde than regular cigarettes.

Con: 'It Sends a Confusing Message'

Banning e-cigarettes and vaporizers in bars is nothing short of "a mistake," Alex Clark, legislative director for the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association (CASAA), a non-profit organization in Alabama, tells Esquire. "It sends a confusing message to people that these products pose similar risks as smoking," when they've been proven to be "99 percent less harmful." Put another way, current smokers may not want to quit if a state like Louisiana treats e-cigarette smokers like regular smokers. "Considering the complete lack of evidence that e-cigarette vapor poses risks to bystanders, private businesses should retain the right to allow or disallow vaping in their establishments, says Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, a nonprofit organization based in Washington D.C. "It sends the message to America's 40 million-plus smokers that vaping may be as hazardous as smoking."

The blow to small businesses may be even worse, says Jacob Moore, assistant manager at Vape Nook, a liquid vaping shop in Dover, Delaware. "Honestly, banning it from the bars will not only hurt the bars' business," but businesses nearby. Warns Russell Patum, assistant manager at Imperial Vapor Co. in Houston, if e-cigarette smokers encounter red tape at a bar, they'll simply try to buy their drink elsewhere. "I found different places to go when I was a smoker," he recalls of 2001, the year Houston banned cigarette smoking in bars. "I started going to bars in the suburbs where it was legal instead of the ones inside the city limits." With the U.S. unemployment rate at 5.5 percent in March, that wouldn't bode well economically.

When asked if the ban has a point, given the surge in e-cigarettes' popularity among high school students, Patum says that's not bar owners ' concern. Teens already aren't welcome in bars, he points out, and even in his shop he IDs shoppers. "We want to keep it out of the hands of some 15-year-old kid who just wants to be cool," he says. "It's not good for our business to be known to sell to underage people."

Jill Krasny Senior Writer Jill Krasny is a senior writer for Esquire where she covers lifestyle, books and general news.

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