By: Jesse Westfall

Jesse Westfall
Wed, 04 Dec 2013 23:25:00 +0000

My problem is not with the ban, it is with the definition of the word tobacco:

Tobacco is defined as all tobacco-derived or containing products, including and not limited to, cigarettes (e.g., clove, bidis, kreteks), electronic cigarettes, cigars and cigarillos, hookah smoked products, pipes, and oral tobacco (e.g., spit and spitless, smokeless, chew, snuff) and nasal tobacco (e.g. snus). It also includes any product intended to mimic tobacco products, contain tobacco flavoring, or deliver nicotine other than for the purpose of cessation.

That is the word for word from the policy.

I have smoked for 10 years. Recently, I have switched to a propylene glycol electronic vaporizer. There have been no studies that have found any of the health related issues connected to these. In fact, many countries have embraced them as a healthy alternative to smoking tobacco and the most effective way to quit smoking. I tend to agree. But under this definition of tobacco, my vaporizer is an “electronic cigarette”. And, under this verbiage, candy cigarettes are tobacco. This is ludicrous. This is lazy policy making and skates on the wrong side of morality for a public university.