The Naperville City Council did something courageous and important last Tuesday night, something they could easily have avoided. They banned the possession of alternative nicotine delivery devices, or e-cigarettes, by people under 18 and the use of such devices in indoor public places.
The reason it’s courageous is because e-cigarettes have a lot of supporters. The last time I wrote about them I received a ton of negative mail, most of which was insulting and obscene. Whatever their benefits or dangers, e-cigarettes have their defenders.
In many towns, and at the state level, these defenders have pressured legislators to delay any action pending further medical studies or action by federal agencies like the FDA. This, of course, is the same strategy that was used to delay regulation of regular cigarettes, which makes sense because e-cigarettes are increasingly made and sold by tobacco companies.
Researchers, however, knew the truth about regular cigarettes long before the public was convinced, and the same is true today of e-cigarettes. While it is indeed true that they are much less damaging to most parts of the body, they are not safe and definitely not harmless.
When you take the DNA from any part of the body, break it into its four components, and separate them on a special electrical device, you get four different spots, one for each type of component. If you do the same thing with tissue from a regular smoker you will, in addition, get dozens of additional spots that represent DNA components that were damaged by tobacco smoke toxins that got into the blood stream and affected every organ. That’s why smoking can cause so many different diseases.
In contrast, e-cigarettes release fewer toxins, like formaldehyde, nitrosoamines, and whatever chemicals the manufacturer has put into the filling solution to flavor it, such as diacetyl, which smells like butter. Their effects will be primarily in the lungs where they typically cause inflammatory diseases like emphysema and bronchiolitis obliterans, although formaldehyde certainly can cause cancer.
If an adult wants to maintain a nicotine addiction by this safer method, he should be free to do so. And if he believes that e-cigarettes are more helpful in quitting smoking than gum or patches, although there is only anecdotal, not statistical, evidence that it is, then he should by all means try because nicotine has its own dangers.
But hundreds of thousands of grade school children and millions of high school students have taken up e-cigarettes in the last couple of years. The chances are, starting that early, they will remain addicted to nicotine their entire lives, which of course is what the companies are counting on. That’s why there are things like bubble gum flavored e-cigarettes, which obviously aren’t made for the Marlboro Man.
Until last Tuesday night, it was perfectly legal for Naperville kids to use e-cigarettes to damage their lungs, and their brains because nicotine is much more harmful to immature brains. Had the council equivocated, as have many towns and the state, more kids would have taken up the habit.
But they acted, and that was important. Everybody hates unnecessary regulations. I probably hate them more than most. But at some point you have to use judgment and decide when you know enough.
And as far as kids and e-cigarettes are concerned, we do know enough, even though the topic remains controversial. In fact, there are many things that need to be fixed in our town, and a lot of them are controversial. But as long as the council remains thoughtful, courageous, and willing to act on principle, it appears they will make the right decisions.
Bill Mego is a freelance writer for the Naperville Sun.