Ecigs Banned In Parks
West Des Moines fight with ecigs and ban them from all parks.
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by Dave Cross
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The local government offers vaping hikers lots of helpful advice such as always travelling on the right-hand side of trails, never spook animals and to leave no trace. But the website needs amending as ecig users will no longer be allowed to carry and use their cigalikes, mods or mechs. West Des Moines Parks & Recreation not being so much Ron Swanson as wrong swansong.
We reported how, back in June, how politicians in New Brunswick put the block on vaping in their parks because “it will also further de-normalize tobacco use and reduce the amount of time children are exposed to smoking as a socially acceptable activity.” The health minister informed anybody who’d listen how he planned to implement it: “Everybody's going to be asked to help with the enforcement of this.”
The American National Parks Service followed on, later in the year, with its own absurd ban. While telling their employees in a memo that e-cigarettes contain “a toxic chemical also found in antifreeze”, they allowed people to continue to use their cellphones, laptops and anything else containing a lithium-ion cell.
The president of the American Vaping Association said, at the time: “Outdoor smoking bans in parks can at least somewhat be justified by the risk of fires, but vapour products pose no more of a fire risk than a cellphone battery. This behaviour is shameful and any enforcement of the ban will constitute a great misuse of government resources. The National Park Service should leave ex-smokers alone and let them camp and hike in peace.”
But West Des Moines hasn’t been paying attention. They have, on the other hand, been listening very keenly to the presentations by the anti-vaping/pro-pharma American Lung Association (ALA). The ALA contended: “prohibiting all nicotine products [avoids] confusion and [makes] enforcement easier.”
Councilman Kevin Trevillyan questioned the sanity of passing such a ban. He failed to see why a smokeless product was included in the law and also agreed that policing the ban would be exceptionally difficult. “Police are busy with higher-priority crimes or smokers are finished with their cigarettes before they arrive,” he is reported as saying. But then, in keeping with the madness of such a ban, he voted for it anyway!
"We know it's going to be tough to catch people, but it sends a message," said Gary Scott, director of Parks & Recreation. It certainly does, Gary, but it’s probably not the message you intended. ALA have stated that they will supply willing volunteers to run around and be busy-bodies in order to trap vapers in the act and help them towards a $100 fine.
As Ron Swanson said: “Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.”
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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