This has been discussed a number of times including the recent pat, it might be worth a search of the forums.

Who says? The manufacturers of cigarettes used to say that the smoke was positively beneficial to health.

The link may help inform your decision. https://www.kick-it.org....can-cause-harm-to-lungs/ It contains information which, on the face of it, would lead you to believe that e cigarettes are bad. However, I can find nothing from government official sources. Manufactuers would obviously have a different view. For our workplace - we are considering not allowing them to be used inside as per the smoking regs. Not for any health or safety reasons but I guess it is all down to what impression is given to others. Graham

http://forum.iosh.co.uk/...spx?g=posts&t=108321 some posts on here about it from a couple of weeks back

gt: Trouble is that the site you linked to states that the nicotine in e-cigarettes is derived from heating up tobacco rather than burning it. I doubted that comment. Other websources state that the nicotine is derived from vaporisation of a solution... that sounds much more credible to me - although I have no idea whether that is correct. We need to be careful about acting on incorrect information. What I do know is that the Uk's smoking ban - as has been stated - was concerned with a (perceived?) risk of ill effects from secondary smoking. Mainly the tar products I think. That shouldn't be a problem with e-cigarettes. So there'd have to be another sound reason for banning their use - or one has to go down a general good health route. Phil

Making a decision based on risk, there is insufficient knowledge at present with regard to the chemicals being inhaled with nicotine in the vapours. Are they subject to REACH? Most are manufactured in China. Making a decision based on impacting the safety culture of your organisation, one could suppose efforts to restrain smoking based on risk of cancer may be impacted due to lack of awareness or knowledge of possible risks from e-cigarettes, and the idea that they are 'safe'. Employees may believe you have a nanny state if you don't make decisions based on risk or if you don't put effort into explaining firstly what the potential issues are. Recent BBC report:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20583902 "Electronic cigarettes have been subjected only to minimal scientific study - not enough to demonstrate whether they are safer than tobacco cigarettes or effective as a smoking cessation product like nicotine gum or patches. The World Health Organization has warned electronic cigarettes "pose significant public health issues and raise questions for tobacco control policy and regulation". And a 2009 test by the US Food and Drug Administration of electronic cigarettes - none from blu - found traces of cancer-causing chemicals and other toxic chemicals. Electronic cigarettes are either banned or heavily regulated in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany and several other countries. But in the US, at present electronic cigarettes "are essentially unregulated" says McGoldrick"

Achrn, Never sure whether to respond to specific comments that are made about my postings but here goes. You said Regarding a ban “…doesn't need to be a sound reason - management can simply decide..” I agree but surely it is better to have some explanation for action that is taken? I would suggest that any management that “simply decides” is going to have some trouble with its image across the workforce. You suggested that if the actions of management “…hasn't seen adequate justification that e-cigarettes really are as harmless as those selling them maintain.” This is potentially dangerous territory. What you are suggesting a pure precautionary action. That can be done but as above is not based on scientific evidence. Employees could simply respond to management along the lines “It is my life, my lungs, who are you to tell me what to do?” How would management respond, how would they justify their actions? You said “You don't need proven evidence that something is harmful to prohibit it in the workplace.” But in the absence of such evidence we are back to taking action “simply because”… .. What? Why? We don’t like “smoking”? If there was a risk of ingestion of harmful chemical then one should ban e-cigarettes for the same reasons that tobacco based cigarettes were banned – because there is a risk to health. But in a clean warehouse, perhaps placing of items already sealed in point of sale packaging into cardboard boxes what is the risk from allowing use of e-cigarettes? Finally you said “Breathing in unspecified vaporised liquids falls into the category of things not to do unless you're sure it's safe, to my mind. It's certainly not in the category of things that must be OK because no-one has proved it's not” But surely the regulations are to do with substance that is present in the workplace atmosphere that is generated by work activity etc. I didn’t think that the various health and safety regulations extended to substances that were purchased – legally – by the employee and which are breathed in voluntarily? I'm more with the last posting... to react too quickly, without solid evidcne is a risky step to take. Phil

Actually I said "management can simply decide it doesn't like the image / appearance" That's the point - it doesn't need to be based on scientific evidence. Most office workplaces have a dress code for example - are you saying there shouldn't be a dress code unless there's scientific evidence that dropping the dress code will certainly have a quantifiable, demonstrable detriment? Where's the scientific proof that uniforms are necessary for all those workplaces that have them? I don't care what someone puts in their lungs. I do care about what they breathe out in my direction and goes into my lungs, or into the lungs of other members of the workforce. If those wanting to use e-cigarettes are located in a hermetically sealed enclosure where every one of them wants to breathe teh same unspecified vapours, that's fine. However, that's not the situation in my workplace. If I said to you "breathe these fumes in, I'm not going to tell you what's in them because I don't know myself, but I've decided I want to breathe them, so you're going to be obliged to breathe them too", you'd be perfectly happy with that? They aren't breathed in voluntarily by the bloke standing next to the bloke that wants to puff on an e-cigarette.

Pro's and con's. Depends how you look at it - if you believe that they are dangerous then get 'em banned; if you are not sure if they are dangerous or not, then that is the quandry. If you leave it and they turn out to be lethal in twenty or forty years time like asbestos, then that is somethiing that I would not like to look forward to. In the absence of such knowledge, I am surprised the things are not banned already. I would ban them on that basis alone. There are many occasions on which stuff has been banned - eg GM crops - because the precautionalry principle has been used to ban it in case it is dangerous, even though plenty of countries do not ban GM. Same position for e-cigarettes. So it is not just the anti elf n safety, it is the European Union which is blocking the GM crops while allowing trials. But when these trials of certain crops are visited by bees, and pollen goes into honey, then that honey is not allowed to be sold in the EU. Just a side thought. Incidentally, a friend who works in a HMP has told em of the current jailhouse cigarette japes - tell the medical staff that you want to give up smoking: they support that and give you nicotine patch, which you then boil for a while to loosen the glue holding it together. When the glue appears to start to start dissolving and the sides start to seperate, you then take out the patch, seperate the sides, take the nicotine releasing powder/gunk inside the patch and put that in an otherwise normal roll-up which when smoked, gives the equivalent of 40 times the normal nicotine hit in one cigarette. Result - Norman Stanley Fletcher and his mates collapsing due to acute nicotine poisoning. Both genius and stupid at the same time in a place where patches have become currency alongside normal tobacco and cigarettes. Can't wait to see what inmates start to do to e-cigarettes.

Perhaps I could one day see America afterall - can't go over 4 hours without a ciggie, hence done the Canaries to death