The rules governing personal conduct on the top deck of a
Glasgow bus are known to international peacekeeping forces everywhere: keep
your head down; do not make eye contact and on no account attempt to make
polite conversation with strangers. Refrain too from making jerky or
unpredictable movements. It was probably the last of these that I transgressed
last Thursday evening as I fished out my electronic cigarette and started
puffing. Yet only for a few seconds did subsequent events threaten to get out
of hand.
To inhale a good lungful of the nicotine essence that these
little missiles produce, it’s necessary to suck really hard so that the blue
tip glows iridescent and bright. In this way you can sustain the merest hint of
a hit at the back of the throat before exhaling enough vapor to make it look as
though it’s a real cigarette you’re smoking. There had been a few tetchy
glances from other passengers, especially from a nervy young woman who may,
very possibly, have simply wanted to light up herself. Now there’s a tap on my
shoulder. An older gent with a no-hostages haircut leans forward. “Are you just
smokin’ that for effect, my friend?” he inquires, pronouncing “friend” as
“freen.” “As a matter of fact … yes,” say I.
“Well, in that case I think I’ll join ye,” he says,
producing one of his own, which glows green.
It strikes me that if enough of us were to do this in a
darkened bus at night-time it might look like a mobile installation. Perhaps we
could secure a grant … For a few days only I had joined the one and a half
million or so other Britons who have recently begun to smoke electronic
cigarettes. The manufacturers claim these are harmless substitutes for real
cigarettes and, as such, could save thousands of lives each year.
It’s a claim impossible to verify, but highly unlikely. My
single white stick cost £6.99 and is equivalent to 40 cigarettes, according to
its makers, a saving of more than 50 percent on two packets of the real thing.
If the recent rate of uptake were to continue, the debate about e-cigarettes’
safety would intensify.
On the face of it, they ought to be the elixir of life for
cancer specialists and anti-smoking campaigners. Even though they have not been
around long enough for a study of other potential harmful effects, it’s
generally accepted by medics — and reluctantly so by the anti-smoking lobby —
that they are less harmful than cigarettes. The devices are powered by battery
and deliver nicotine that becomes vaporized before forming an aerosol mist. In
some English pubs groups of users, who like to be known as “vapers,” have begun
to gather.
At another level, though, e-cigarettes could be seen as
insidious wee varmints that insinuate themselves into polite company and
corrupt by stealth. As they contain no tobacco and are not actually lit, they
can be used legally in those public places where real smoking is illegal.
Organizations including Virgin Trains and the Wetherspoons leisure chain are
not convinced and have banned them.
Sarti’s Italian restaurant in Glasgow city center was once
filled with shoppers and office workers who went to eat pizza, drink coffee and
smoke their little heads right off. Since Scotland introduced a smoking ban in
2005, it’s been one of those places where it’s hard to imagine we were ever
allowed to
smoke at all. On Thursday lunchtime, among older ladies with
hats and elegant dresses and families soon to be parted by university, I fired
up the electronic snout and checked discreetly for signs of agitation. As the
photographer snapped away, one of my lunching ladies simply had to say
something. “Are you modeling those gas cigarettes?” she asked. “Yes,” said the
passing waiter, “it’s for the cover of next month’s Vogue.” He said it with a
snort.
Earlier that day Celtic FC, one of Britain’s foremost
sporting institutions, had announced it would be supplying another leading
brand of electronic cigarettes at outlets within its stadium. It’s the
e-cigarette industry’s biggest endorsement to date.
Stewart Maxwell, the Scottish Nationalist MSP who championed
the smoking ban in Scotland, could barely contain his fury. “I’m very
disappointed that a big and successful football club such as Celtic would get
involved with this,” he said. “The campaign to ban smoking in public places was
about de-normalizing smoking as an activity in public. This goes exactly in the
opposite direction.”
I ought to point out here that Maxwell, like Sir Robert
Peel, has a smile that resembles the brass nameplate on a coffin lid. Not only
is it sinful to smoke, he seems to be saying, it is sinful even to think about
it. The nation’s first thought crime is surely not very far away now. It is hard
to fathom the source of Maxwell’s angst. As MSP for the West of Scotland, he is
fully aware how many of his constituents die from smoking-related cancer every
year. Even anti-smoking group Ash Scotland accepts that e-cigarettes are much
safer than tobacco, while remaining concerned that tobacco companies promote
dual use of artificial products and real ones.
It’s expected that from 2016 the e-cigarette market will be
regulated, when the devices are licensed for medicinal use in helping to stop
smoking. This should also address fears that unregulated, pirate products could
threaten human health. By then, too, a clearer picture will have emerged on
whether e-cigarettes are essentially good for those of us who want to quit
smoking or whether they are harmful.
Friday evening at Glasgow’s Central Station would sort out
the men from the boys in terms of attitudes to using these devices in public
places. The platforms are teeming with Scotland and Belgium supporters en route
to the World Cup qualifier at Hampden later that night. Police and stewards are
out in force and I am insouciantly trying to wrap myself in ribbons of white
vapor. Soon a couple of big coppers trudge by and then, almost imperceptibly,
they slow. They are looking, but pretending not to, and I know why. They don’t
want to collar someone for a banned activity in a public place only for the
smart-arse to brandish his pesky device in their faces. They are on their way
again.
After three days of smoking e-cigarettes, I’m not enchanted.
I’d only want to use them in places where I was accustomed to smoking: pubs and
cafes. And I’d be reluctant to strike them up in places where there are
children. I could see them work in hospitals as a treat for smokers.
Celtic and their new e-cigarette sponsors are kidding
themselves if they think their partnership will lead to an outbreak of
responsible smoking among supporters. Already I’m told of a workshop in the
city going into surreptitious production hollowing out these babies and fitting
them with special filters so that real tobacco can be smoked.
Article Credit: http://www.japantimes.co.jp
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