NEW YORK: The New York City Council yesterday voted on a bill that would add electronic cigarettes to the city’s strict smoking ban, in the latest of many anti-tobacco measures signed by outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Bloomberg’s detractors have derided him for trying to impose a “nanny state” in America’s largest city, pointing to his bans on smoking, trans fats and the attempt to limit the sale of large sugary drinks. Public health advocates have applauded those same efforts.
Only weeks after New York became the first major city to raise the legal age for buying tobacco to 21, the City Council voted on a ban that would add electronic cigarettes to the city’s Smoke-Free Air Act.
“While more research is needed on electronic cigarettes, waiting to act could jeopardise the progress we have made over the last few years,” New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said at a city council hearing on the bill earlier this month.
E-cigarettes are slim, reusable metal tubes that contain nicotine-laced liquid in a variety of exotic flavours such as bubble gum and bacon.
As a “smoker” puffs on the device, the nicotine is heated and releases a vapour that, unlike cigarette smoke, contains no tar, which is known to cause cancer and other diseases. Reuters
