The average person has probably heard two things about the vapor produced by electronic cigarettes: either it's perfectly harmless, or it's worse than cigarettes, forest fires, and nuclear explosions combined. You've probably heard more than once that "not enough studies have been done."

Here's where my job as author of this article gets really easy. In case you don't have time to read the linked studies in their entirety, allow me to quote:

A 2012 Greek study entitled Acute effects of using an electronic nicotine-delivery device on myocardial function: comparison with regular cigarettes: "Absence of combustion and different chemical composition, leading to less toxic chemicals created and absorbed . . . electronic cigarettes may be a safer alternative to tobacco cigarettes."

A 2012 research paper entitled Levels of selected carcinogens and toxicants in vapor from electronic cigarettes: "We found that the e-cigarette vapors contained some toxic substances. The levels of the toxicants were 9–450 times lower than in cigarette smoke and were, in many cases, comparable with trace amounts found in the reference product . . . our findings are consistent with the idea that substituting tobacco cigarettes with e-cigarettes may substantially reduce exposure to selected tobacco-specific toxicants. E-cigarettes as a harm reduction strategy among smokers unwilling to quit, warrants further study."

A 2012 study entitled Comparison of the effects of e-cigarette vapor and cigarette smoke on indoor air quality: "For all byproducts measured, electronic cigarettes produce very small exposures relative to tobacco cigarettes. The study indicates no apparent risk to human health from e-cigarette emissions based on the compounds analyzed."

You may not have realized this had been studied so extensively, and I could link to many more. I'd like to draw attention to that last study, however—the one focusing specifically on "secondhand" vapor. The first inroads being made into legislating our industry are arguing that vaping should be restricted to the same areas as smoking as the vapor isn't safe. Across the board in our industry, though, the feeling is that . . .