LIBERTYSTIX.JPG

Does the sight of someone smoking an electronic cigarette near you set you off, or are you unfazed? A new national survey has some interesting findings.

(Chuck Crow/PD)

Go ahead and admit it. At least once, you've given people the evil eye when you see a them with a

in their hand and you're

.

You can't stand the smell of cigarettes, or you want one but left yours behind to avoid breaking the law. Either way, you're annoyed. But then you realize the smoke is actually liquid nicotine vapor coming from an electronic cigarette variety and you calm down.

Or do you?

Most of us - 63 percent, to be exact - are OK with someone firing up an electronic cigarette near us, according to a new national survey conducted by

- and paid for by an e-cigarette maker. The results of the 2014 American E-Cigarette Etiquette Survey were released today.

But that acceptance changes depending on the venue.

The survey respondents were asked two questions:

*If someone was using an electronic cigarette, or an e-cigarette, in close proximity to you, would it bother you?

* Would you approve or disapprove of someone using an e-cigarette in the following locations, or do you have no opinion one way or the other? (locations included sporting event, shopping mall, bar/restaurant, public transportation, office building, movie theater, airplane)

According to the telephone survey of 505 men and 506 women - 58 percent of respondents say they are fine with allowing "vaping" at sporting events.

When it comes to malls, restaurants and bars and office settings, we're less tolerant. At the bottom of acceptance was public transportation (35 percent approved), movie theaters (29 percent), and on an airplane (26 percent).

More men than women (71 percent vs. 55 percent) said someone using e-cigarettes in their presence wouldn't bother them. In general, men were more tolerant of their use in restaurants and bars than women (52 percent vs. 38 percent).

The survey was not conducted in anticipation of the Food and Drug Administration's expected announcement, sometime this year, of new proposed regulations for the sale and marketing of e-cigarettes, said John Wiesehan Jr., co-founder and CEO of North Carolina-based

, which specializes in rechargeable products.

"We did this survey more for our own education, to be blunt about it," Wiesehan told The Plain Dealer. "Some municipalities allow e-cigarettes, some don’t. Some are looking at how they want to handle it."

Concerned about the growing popularity of e-cigarettes among teens, the attorneys general in 40 states sent a letter to the FDA last fall urging that it regulate e-cigarettes as it does tobacco.

Wiesehan said he was a bit surprised that the acceptance at sporting events was as high as it was. Less surprising, though, was the reaction of seeing someone with an e-cigarette on an airplane.

"I could see where people could be a little nervous in that situation," he said.

Intrigued by the survey results, the company saw an opportunity to "be the ones to be the first to start to frame a conversation" around e-cigarette etiquette, Wiesehan said.

The findings also will help the company market its products, he said.

Other survey results:

*Adults under age 35 (70 percent) were more likely than adults 65 and older (46 percent) to say they didn't mind people using e-cigarettes near them.

*Midwesterners who gave an opinion were more tolerant than people living in the West about people using an e-cigarette on an airplane.

*People making $50,000-$75,000 a year were less likely to care about someone vaping than someone with a smaller salary.

The survey did not indicate how many of those who offered their opinions were current or former cigarette or e-cigarette users.

Focusing on those who were not accepting of e-cigarette use -- the 55 percent of people who don't like being around it in a restaurant, or 71 percent who don't want to be around it in a movie theater, for example -- oncologist Dr. Nathan Pennell says they are right to be concerned.

“This is a real drug that is being burned and vaporized, and you are able to inhale it in your lungs,” said Pennell, an oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic whose focus includes lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies.

“It may turn out that it’s not significantly harmful, but it’s so new that no one knows that yet,” he said.

As a carefully controlled nicotine replacement strategy for people who are actively trying to quit using tobacco products, Pennell said he sees some value in e-cigarettes.

“But there is a lot of potential for abuse,” he said, adding that some companies aren’t marketing just to people who are trying to quit traditional cigarettes.

On one hand, if the survey shows that the stigma surrounding smoking - albeit e-cigarettes - is waning, they may succeed in capturing a new population of customers who have never smoked or who are long-ago former smokers. On the other hand, the perceived lessening of stigma might be used by state tobacco control agencies to bolster their argument that more regulation is needed.