San Francisco breaks its e-cigarette habit

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Non-usa person here.

How is it possible for SF to ban online retailers from serving customers in the city? How is a purchase from an online business at the other side of the country within their jurisdiction? Doesn’t the federal government have the power to regulate interstate commerce?


At the risk of sounding terminally bewildered: isn’t this just going to push e-cig smokers back to normal cigarettes?


This is fucking stupid.


For what it’s worth, I’ve seen e-cigarettes be hugely helpful to many friends who are trying to end nicotine addiction. Most of them took up vaping to wean themselves off of cigarettes and step down their nicotine intake gradually.

Since e-cigs are readily available online, I’m assuming the point of this is to stop Satanic bodega owners from selling gullible little kids e-cigs? In any case, it’s an extremely silly ban.


Excellent. SF is another step closer to becoming the feces-covered progressive utopia it yearns to be.

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I understand why San Francisco would want to ban the sale of an addictive, expensive product that adds no real value to a person’s life (at best it’s a wash for people trying to quit regular cancer sticks). And the bonus of a reduced number of people looking like douchebags on the city streets isn’t to be sneezed at.

Still, without also banning the sale of regular cigarettes this ban seems pointless. If some weak-willed idiot is going to get himself addicted to nicotine, I’d prefer that it happen with fruit-scented water vapour rather than reeking second-hand carcinogen smoke.


The public-health argument for this seems extremely tenuous, but even so, I would be willing to give their good intentions the benefit of the doubt, except that they haven’t made even a token effort to ban regular cigarettes, so it’s just plain bullshit.


Shush. Unintended consequences shall not be mentioned here.


That could well be an unintended side effect. I believe one of the main drives for the ban is the major popularity among youth, which looks to have caused an increase in overall tobacco user gains among minors, reversing the trend of decline.


But why is it SF government’s business what a person does as it’s not hurting anybody else?


It’s not legislation targetted at individuals. This is about businesses in the city that sell (and, perhaps in the future, manufacture) the product. The city apparently believes that in this case selling an addictive product is not something its merchants should be doing.

As noted above, I don’t think it’s a particularly effective or well-considered prohibition measure without a full ban on selling tobacco products as well, but cities and counties and states do have the general right to impose limitations on what can be sold by businesses operating in their jurisdictions. Heck, there are still “dry counties” in the U.S. a century after Prohibition was enacted.


I worked in San Francisco for three years. I never saw anyone with a regular paper-and-tobacco cigarette there. I did, however, have to walk through clouds of vape on my way to the office. Nicotine is not only addictive, it is also a poison that can be absorbed through the skin. I like the idea of this ban. It could be improved by the addition of traditional cigarettes.


That’s harsh. I vape, and it adds real value to my life. Nicotine is an amazing psychoactive compound that previously was relegated only to a deadly delivery system. No more.

Nicotine gives one the benefits of focused attention while simultaneously relieving anxiety. It also stimulates the same brain circuitry involved in motivation and reward, as well as the circuitry involved with depression. To significant benefit.


Exactly this; smoking/nicotine products go through cycles of ‘cool’ – cigarettes, blunts/cigarillos, bidis, vapes – and cigarettes are definitely not hip at the moment. But banning vapes without banning everything else is going to just make the kids go to some other type of smoking.

If SF wanted to be progressive about nicotine, they’d ban sales of all forms of nicotine delivery above a certain percentage. No cigarettes or cigars or blunts, no full strength vape juice. Mandate all e-cigarette companies make 3% and 0% cartridges available. Help people wean themselves off with effective, healthier products.


Try nicotine patches instead. Then you’ll get all the benefits of nicotine you like with none of the negative aspects and without bothering anyone else or looking like an absolute idiot in public.


But again, why is it the city’s business what legal item a business sells?


Because in the U.S. a city or county or state has the right to determine what items and services aren’t legal or aren’t unrestricted for sale in its jurisdiction, regardless of whether their sale isn’t banned or limited by federal law. Sometimes the prohibition or restriction makes sense, sometimes it’s silly. What more can I tell you? That’s how the law works.


For the same silly reasons that I can’t buy alcohol until 1pm on Sundays and food trucks in my neighborhood have to be parked within 100 feet of the restaurant they’re owned by: cities make goofy laws when they think they’re protecting people.


I guess my question is why vape? There are plenty of things and activities that SF is not banning or regulating that could potentially hurt a person’s health. Would the city ban scrotal inflation, for example, or fat and sugar-loaded cakes and pies, or two-stroke engines? Why vape?