Unsure what to buy for your loved ones this Christmas? Here are two ideas.
For diehard smokers, try buying an electronic cigarette, currently causing controversy in California, where an attempt to prevent their sale was recently vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. The devices cause debate for a host of reasons — not least because there is a near unanimous consensus among health professionals that they present a potential source of enjoyment. Some claim they will act as a gateway drug, causing those ‘smoking’ them (‘vaping’ is the current word, since the devices produce nicotine-infused vapour, not smoke) to move to harder drugs — on that same inevitable path by which youthful dabbling with loose-leaf Darjeeling leads to crystal meth. This silly ‘gateway’ argument reminds me of the joke about Scottish Presbyterians — that they are opposed to sex standing up, as it might lead to dancing.
But the real concern of those fighting these devices is that, since they contain nicotine but no tobacco, they may circumvent anti-smoking laws: in fact Scandinavian Airlines has already added a rider forbidding their use on flights.
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