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Within the vaping community — particularly among business owners — there is a bit of a debate over whether the term “smoking” is acceptable when talking about the use of electronic cigarettes. While some don’t see the potential problems, others wish to distance the industry from smoking as much as possible. To them, the small connections (like terminology) are just as important as the big ones (like regulatory consistency between tobacco and electronic cigarettes), and all should be fought against.

Vapers always have plenty to argue with outsiders about. If it’s not whether electronic cigarette use should be allowed in public, it’s whether a wide variety of flavors should exist, whether the products actually help with smoking cessation, and whether they really do less damage than tobacco cigarettes.

But this is a debate going on primarily within the community. And though it mostly comes from business owners hoping to differentiate their stock from tobacco products, it can still be a contentious topic. One vape shop owner I’ve spoke with has and will fire employees who repeatedly use the term smoking.

There’s not a lot to be said in favor of use of the term. Mostly, people will relate e-cigs to smoking whether you like it or not. The term smoking is so ingrained in our vocabulary that it sounds weird and almost intentionally evasive to call an act so like it anything but. (I, for one, still find the term vaping somewhat awkward to use in casual dialogue.)

There is, however, a long list of reasons why smoking is problematic terminology for electronic cigarettes. First off, they don’t create smoke. The vapor that electronic cigarette replace tobacco smoke with is the reason these products are so much less harmful (99% less harmful according to many experts).

But beyond that, there is a public relations and education component to keeping tobacco and electronic cigarettes as separated as possible. With individuals that are willing to listen, arguments about e-cigs can often be made very effectively. On a broader scope though, people make judgements with their gut. If something is called smoking — even if it is distinctly different — people may view it with all the anger and frustration with which they view actual smoking.

This also makes it all the easier for politicians to argue that legislation should treat anything that looks like smoking, acts like smoking, and is called smoking as smoking.

Meanwhile, there are quite a lot of businesses out there that use some derivative of smoke or smoking as part of their brand. Even one of the earliest companies in the industry was Smoking Everywhere. There is an ease of branding when you use words with which people are already quite familiar. But again, opponents to the products relish every opportunity to say See!! Even they say it’s smoking and smoking is deadly!!

Like most things, there isn’t exactly a “right” answer (other than perhaps moderation). Given ten or twenty years of growth, smoking may no longer be a term that belongs to an obsolete combustible product which kills half its users. It may simply be a colloquial for predominantly harmless nicotine consumption through electronic devices (a possible future for the e-cig market).

Till then, the terminology debate continues.