S.F. Supervisor Eric Mar crafts plan to regulate e-cig use

The Vapor Den's Andy Michelson inhales some vapor while on the job, an action that would be banned if a supervisor's proposal passes and the mayor signs it. The Vapor Den's Andy Michelson inhales some vapor while on the job, an action that would be banned if a supervisor's proposal passes and the mayor signs it. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close S.F. Supervisor Eric Mar crafts plan to regulate e-cig use 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

Thirty-one years ago, UCSF researcher Stanton Glantz helped push a San Francisco law to curb smoking in the workplace, pioneering legislation that set the stage for some of the strictest antitobacco laws in the nation.

Now, he's hoping to expand those laws to electronic cigarettes.

Glantz stood alongside health advocates and Supervisor Eric Mar at City Hall on Monday to talk about the supervisor's proposal to treat e-cigarettes like their combustible counterparts in San Francisco, legislation that would severely limit where the relatively new tobacco product can be used and sold. Supporters said the ban will help limit children's use of the e-cigarettes and protect the public from the secondhand aerosol emitted by the devices, which are unregulated by federal authorities.

"I feel like I'm in a time machine," said Glantz, a vocal antismoking advocate and head of UCSF's Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. "I was here and participating in 1983 when San Francisco passed a smoking law ... and it was the same arguments - that it would destroy freedom, that it would destroy America, that it would ruin everything. That there was no evidence secondhand smoke is dangerous. It was not true when we were talking about secondhand smoke in 1983, and it's not true when we are talking about e-cigarettes now."

Under Mar's proposal, which is co-sponsored by Supervisors John Avalos and David Chiu, electronic cigarettes would be banned in the same places regular cigarettes are, including inside businesses, at city parks, and on buses and trains. It would require sellers of e-cigarettes to secure a tobacco permit, and prohibit their sale in pharmacies and other businesses where tobacco sales are banned.

If passed by the Board of Supervisors and signed by the mayor, the legislation would join a growing list of policies limiting their use and sales in a number of cities and counties, including Contra Costa County.

Mar said that while tobacco use among young people remains low, the number of youths experimenting with e-cigarettes is on the rise. He cited a 2013 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey which recorded a significant jump in the number of high school students who had tried e-cigarettes: 4.7 percent in 2011, and 10 percent in 2012.

'This is about ... health'

"This is about the health of our children and our communities," Mar said, noting that e-cigarettes come in flavors, such as berry, Skittles and bubble gum, that are apparently intended to appeal to kids. "I have a 13-year-old daughter who is in eighth grade, and she has told me stories about people smoking in class when the teacher turns their back. ... This would just allow smoking e-cigarettes where regular cigarettes are allowed, and prohibit them where cigarettes are prohibited."

Little is known about the long-term health effects of e-cigarettes, but Glantz said he believes they have become a "gateway" device for young people who then will move on to smoking real cigarettes. While they have been characterized by tobacco companies as a smoking-cessation device, he said most smokers don't use them to quit, but simply for situations where regular cigarettes are banned.

"One of their big marketing messages is that you can smoke them anywhere - they are marketed as a way around smoking bans," he said. "Right now, I think the most dangerous thing about e-cigarettes is that they keep people smoking."

While state law prohibits their sale to minors, Malaysia Sanders, a San Francisco City College student, said she and a group of teenagers went out in the Tenderloin neighborhood last week and found it incredibly easy to buy e-cigarettes.

"Most of the time we weren't IDd or even asked for our age," she said.

E-cigarettes are battery-operated devices that contain cartridges filled with nicotine, flavors and other chemicals. Glantz said that while their emissions are billed as vapor, they are actually aerosol, because in addition to vapor they emit small particles and gases including metals and dangerous chemicals.

Less 'toxic stuff'

"The amount of toxic stuff in e-cigarettes is less than cigarettes - they have about 10 percent of the bad stuff. But the fact is that cigarettes are so ridiculously toxic, even something one-tenth as bad is still quite toxic," he said.

If the law is passed, said Department of Public Health educator Derek Smith, the city will undertake a campaign to educate business owners about their responsibilities and rights.

Officials at the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association, a group that supports access to electronic cigarettes, and Lorillard, which manufactures one of the most popular brands of e-cigarettes, could not immediately be reached for comment.