According to a report from last week, it was suggested that the city of San Francisco could be the first city in the US to officially ban e-cigarettes. Unfortunately, for those who are fans of e-cigarettes and were hoping that this would not come to pass, it looks like it did as the city has since voted in favor of banning the sales and deliveries of e-cigarette products.
It has been stated that the law will still need to be reviewed by the city’s Mayor, but it is also said that this is a formality as the Mayor had previously expressed her support for it. Note that it will not come into effect immediately (it will take seven months) and it might also not necessarily be permanent. This is because once the FDA has finished conducting its review of the health effects of e-cigarettes, depending on the outcome, this ban could be lifted.
E-cigarettes have been rather controversial in the eye of the law as some believe that it needs regulation just like regular cigarettes. Others believe that the long-term health effects of such devices has yet to be studied properly, and as such it could be dangerous to allow people to keep smoking them, even if they are seen to be a way for smokers to quit smoking regular cigarettes in favor of e-cigarettes, which some have promoted to be “healthier”.
There have also been the issue of the safety of such devices, where in the past we have seen how some of these devices can explode and in some cases, can even cause permanent injury.