Electronic Cigarette Ban in Austin

The officials found in the Texas capital have recently imposed a ban on the use of electronic cigarettes. On Thursday, the Austin City Council has issued a unanimous vote that bans e-cigarettes from the public areas: bars, restaurants or parks. The ban will come into effect starting with July 3.

Organizations Are Worried about the Risks

Various groups, including the American Cancer Society and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) have issued repeated warnings about the risks of the chemicals and the nicotine found in the e-cigarettes. However, people who love vaping (as the action of smoking an e-cigarette is called) use as an argument various European studies, showing that electronic cigarettes have a lower risk than regular smoking.

According to the data provided by the federal CDC (Center for Disease Control), electronic and regular cigarette use has been seeing a steady decrease in comparison to 2015 and 2016. However, Austin is not the only city to ban e-cigarettes, since there have been other counties and cities to do so recently.

Is It a Risk or Not?

Though indeed the e-cigarettes are less harmful than the normal cigarettes, this doesn’t make them healthy. Vaping has become a true fashion, especially in the last years, when more and more young people started doing it. The benefits are clear for smokers, one of the most convincing argument being the fact that you can smoke them everywhere, even in closed spaces in areas that ban smoking in public.

However, since this is about to change, we can only ask ourselves whether we are going to see a further decrease in their popularity or not. Needless to say, many people were also dragged to it by the fact that there are plenty of flavors available, which makes it even more interesting.