Heard of Vaping? It might be banned before you need to find out

The other day I was doing a little sketching in my old Plateau neighborhood. There’s a little storefront on my ex-block that seems to change hands faster than a bitcoin key. It’s been a lot of things, mostly fashion related – but recently it’s changed over to a Vape shop.

You may not have heard of Vaping yet? – it’s basically using a cute electronic gadget to vaporize the chemical laced payload in a (refillable?) cartridge, then inhaling these mysterious fumes (ok, water vapor) in order to get the flavor, and possibly a nicotine buzz.

But, I feel bad for this little Vape shop in its cursed retail location – because I’ve already been reading about legal bans on e-cigs in New York, and the possibility of the same restrictions coming to Montreal.

[The magic E-Liquid, E-Cigs and my favorite, the E-Pipe. As Magritte says “Ceci n’est pas une pipe“]

Proponents are saying their pocket hookas are a huge boon to the light headed inhalers among us – saving us from the serious health consequences of traditional coffin nails. Advocates say it’s ‘common sense’ that inhaling pure water and nicotine has to be safer than burning pesticides and tobacco right? I mean, who knows what’s lurking in that loamy Virginia soil. So it’s win-win all around, and pure reactionary buzzkill to be talking about bans.

The problem with this cigarette alternative comes in here: the contents of the vaporizing ‘juice’ is completely unregulated at this time. We don’t know what’s in it, or where it comes from, or how consistently it’s manufactured. So it seems impossible to know if in fact it’s safer than the old fashioned match-to-paper cancer sticks. Do you want to be inhaling fumes cooked up by an entrepreneur jumping onto a new stimulant market, trying to cash in before FDA regulations can catch up?

Personally, I can wait and see what happens. I’m getting all the carcinogens I need from licking points on my brushes. And apparently, all the buzz as well.