Evanston Adds E-Cigarettes to Clean Air Act

Despite pleas from users and supporters of electronic cigarettes, the Evanston city council voted 8-1 last week to include the products in the city’s Clean Air Act.

Electronic cigarettes will now be prohibited in all areas designated as “smoke-free,” and within 25 feet of building entrances, according to city spokesperson Erika Storlie. That means they are subject to the same regulations as other tobacco products under city code. 

Only a handful of other municipalities in the U.S. have passed such legislation, and few if any in Illinois, although many cities are considering passing similar ordinances to the just approved in Evanston. Municipalities that recently passed legislation to restrict the use of electronic cigarettes include Duluth City, MN, Woodstown, NJ,Monroe and West Monroe, LA, and Woburn, MA. Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration has said it will issue proposed regulations on the sale, advertising and ingredients of electronic cigarettes by the end of October.

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City council members also voted to change the code’s definition of “tobacco products” to include e-cigarettes, which will allow the city to prohibit their sale to minors. 

Ald. Ann Rainey (8th ward) was the only city council member to vote against restricting electronic cigarettes. Rainey said she had been a smoker herself, and it took her ten years to quit.

“I don’t think that it is as dangerous as people are saying. I’ve read the studies that we’ve been sent,” she said. “It seems to me that every effort humanly possible to help people to quit smoking should be encouraged.” 

Earlier: 'Vaper's' Plea: Don't Outlaw E-Cigarettes in Evanston

Ald. Jane Grover (7th ward), noted that adding e-cigarettes to the city’s tobacco code is not an actual ban on the product, and people can still use them in their own homes, in their cars and outdoors.

“I don’t see this necessarily as a matter of health but as a matter of convenience for users,” she said.

Electronic cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat up a liquid solution, vaporizing the material and delivering nicotine to the user in a water-based mist, according to Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives (CASAA). They may look like traditional cigarettes, pens or small flashlights.

Traditional cigarettes cause cancer because of the chemicals created when the cigarette is burned, according to the American Lung Association.  Meanwhile, electronic cigarettes do not generate that smoke, but simply create a watery mist. They still contain nicotine, however—meaning they are also addictive, just like regular cigarettes. 

The American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) states that the health effects of e-cigarettes are not fully studied, and therefore, consumers should avoid them.

“We support wholeheartedly the city including e-cigarettes in their ordinance,” said April Bailey, tobacco program manager for the American Lung Association in Greater Chicago. Speaking before city council members last week, she said that the Illinois Tobacco Quitline does not recommend e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation device because they reinforce typical smoking behavior and because the FDA does not support them. 

“We really just don’t know how harmful the secondhand exposure is,” she said.

Bailey also said that allowing people to smoke electronic cigarettes in places where traditional cigarettes are not allowed re-normalizes a behavior that society now shuns—not just in bars and restaurants, but throughout society. 

“We’re basically starting over with all of the efforts we’ve made to make cigarettes not normal,” she said. “I know everybody says e-cigarettes are for adults, but look at the flavors—pina colada, strawberry daquiri, cherry cola?”

Supporters of e-cigarettes, however, who spoke before city council members on multiple occasions, said they are a useful tool to help people quit in part because they are allowed in more places than traditional cigarettes. 

“It is pre-emptive,” said Evanston resident James Gottschalk, whose father died of complications from emphysema and long-term smoking last year. “For us to restrict other individuals from having access to a product like that is very wrong.” 

Gottschalk told city council members in late September that he believed his father might still be alive today if he switched from regular cigarettes to electronic cigarettes.

Speaking at the same meeting, Lincolnwood resident and CASAA spokesperson Michael Cozzi cited recent studies that appear to show e-cigarettes may not be all bad. Researchers at Drexel University recently concluded that the chemicals released from electronic cigarettes do not pose significant hazards to bystanders, while Boston University scientists showed that e-cigarettes may be a good tool for quitting tobacco.