Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2013, when most countries had no clear rules for e-cigarettes. That has since changed, with the EU Tobacco Products Directive and FDA oversight in the US from 2016, and cannabis has been legalized in several jurisdictions. Cannabis laws vary widely between countries and states, and vaping products have been linked to serious lung injuries. This 2013 article is not legal or health advice.
We have been talking about e-cigarettes for a few days now. Manufacturers are promoting them as a way to quit smoking or, failing that, to carry on smoking (vaping) with apparently lower risks. But e-cigarettes have turned out to be a perfect fit for marijuana smokers. According to the Daily Mail, the authorities believe that marijuana smokers are using e-cigarettes to smoke marijuana without being detected.
It is no secret. Cannabis has been made and sold in liquid form (cannabis oil) for some time, and when it is used in an e-cigarette it gives off no smell. So nobody knows whether you are smoking (vaping) an e-liquid with nicotine, one without nicotine or “e-marijuana”. According to cannabis smokers, this makes it a “legal” way to smoke marijuana in public, or in places where tobacco is banned but e-cigarettes are not.
Remember that sales of e-cigarettes, and the number of e-cigarette shops opening, have soared in recent years, because of the large number of people switching from tobacco to liquid nicotine. And now there are also the new cannabis smokers joining the “vaping technologies”.
In principle, many countries ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, although in most countries there are, for now, no clear rules in force for electronic cigarettes.
Featured image: Christian Giroud, Mariangela de Cesare. Aurélie Berthet, Vincent Varlet, Nicolas Concha-Lozano, and Bernard Favrat, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
