Counties consider banning e-cigarettes indoors

Rikki Doyen said there is no escaping "the look" from nonsmokers.

She's gotten used to having to leave a restaurant or bar and go outside; she's even gotten used to being shuffled away from the entrances to designated smoking areas. But "the look" continues.

"We're all stuffed in a corner having our cigarettes and you're still looking at us," said Doyen, 45, of Garnerville.

E-cigarette users may soon have to join tobacco smokers in the corner, as some local governments consider expanding smoking bans in workplaces and restaurants to include vaping.

Doyen dabbles in e-cigarettes, she said, although she still prefers tobacco. Potential bans on vaping indoors bother her, she said, because she feels tobacco-smoking prohibitions are what drive many people to vape to begin with. She wonders how far smoking bans would go in the future.

"It's going to be you can't smoke in cars, you can't smoke in your house," she said. "When does it stop and when does it become you're trying to take away my free will?"

Westchester County lawmakers are considering a package of laws with the goal of reducing the number of tobacco and nicotine users by tightening bans on where vaping is allowed and increasing the minimum age to buy tobacco and nicotine products from 18 to 21. Any products approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration as smoking cessation tools would be exempt. E-cigarettes contain nicotine but not tobacco.

Allen Beals, Putnam County's health commissioner, plans to discuss the possibility of drafting similar laws with the Putnam Legislature's health committee on March 19, according to spokeswoman Barbara Ilardi.

The Rockland County Department of Health is drafting a local law to increase the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21, but is not considering a local ban on indoor e-cigarette use at this time, according to Scott Salotto, a county spokesman.

Catherine Borgia, a Westchester County legislator, said her father died of lung cancer at 81 after years of smoking and battling emphysema. She said the restrictions are a matter of public health and that allowing e-cigarettes indoors sends mixed messages as lawmakers look to discourage people from smoking.

"It normalizes smoking behavior, which is something we shouldn't do," she said. More taxes on smoking products could also help, Borgia said — her mother quit in 1968 when taxes pushed the cost of a pack of cigarettes up to 60 cents a pack.

The state Legislature is considering proposals that would make the indoor e-cigarette ban and higher age requirement statewide laws that would supersede counties' actions. Also under consideration by the state are more regulations for e-cigarette sellers and the possibility of taxing e-cigarettes as aggressively as tobacco products (the state's $4.35 tax on a pack of cigarettes is the highest in the country).

Audrey Silk, a Manhattan resident, grows and dries her own tobacco in what she has said is a protest against the high taxes. Silk founded the group NYC Citizens Lobbying Against Smokers Harassment, which has a lawsuit pending in court to overturn New York City's ban on indoor vaping.

In an email to The Journal News, Silk said she found vaping and cigarettes similar only in "the morally driven attack on them" and said comparing the two is like comparing coffee to coffee-flavored ice cream. She said the best argument against e-cigarettes is that they contain nicotine, which she said is no more harmful than caffeine.

"If nicotine in and of itself is not harmful then does it matter that it's the cause of a craving?" she wrote. "Caffeine is addicting but who worries that 'the children' ... will become 'dirty addicts' if they eat coffee ice cream?"

New York City and Suffolk County are among nearly 50 governments in the U.S. that have upped the age to 21 to buy tobacco and nicotine products, according to the Preventing Tobacco Addiction Foundation.

But as tobacco use has declined among teens, use of e-cigarettes has more than doubled since 2011, according to Michael Davoli of the American Cancer Society. Some users say e-cigarettes are a safer alternative to tobacco and can help smokers quit. But critics say the effects of e-cigarettes on users aren't yet fully understood, and that they are usually used in addition to — and not in replacement of — tobacco products. With flavors like strawberry and bubblegum, critics say e-cigarettes can rope young users into nicotine addition at a young age.

Ray Harford, 38, of New Rochelle has been vaping for several months as he's tried to quit cigarettes. He owns a $120 e-cigarette machine that he fills with $15 bottles of vaping liquid. His preferred flavor: Unicorn Milk.

"It'll kill that craving really quick," he said. At first he bought bottles with 24 milligrams of nicotine, he said, but has lessened his consumption and now buys 4-milligram bottles.

Harford said he has no immediate plans to stop vaping and even sneaks in a tobacco cigarette on occasion. He doesn't think that e-cigarettes have helped him get rid of his smoking habit, just replaced it with a lesser evil.

"It's just another crutch," he said. "It's supplementing one demon for the next."

Twitter: @marklungariello