A ban on the use of electronic cigarettes by employees on Caerphilly County Borough Council premises and in council vehicles has moved a step closer.
Members of the authority’s Policy and Resources Scrutiny Committee have agreed to include e-cigarettes in its no smoking policy.
As such, the use of e-cigarettes will be treated in the same way as conventional cigarettes. The proposed restriction will now go before the council’s Cabinet for final approval.
The move to stop the use of electronic cigarettes on council premises and in council vehicles is in line with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board and other local authorities.
Cllr Christine Forehead, Cabinet Member for HR and Governance, said: “This move to strengthen our no smoking policy shows that we are doing all we can to ensure we are providing a healthy, smoke free work environment for our employees.”
Earlier this month the Welsh Government said it was planning to ban the use of the devices in public places over concerns they normalise smoking and undermine the current smoking ban.
This is madness, E-cigarettes are an excellent way of cutting down or ceasing to smoke at all and should be promoted, not attacked in this way. Yes they contain nicotine (a few milligrams in a 24 hour dose) but so do patches, chewing gum and inhalers that do not produce steam. Are these to be banned too?
Exactly how are the council going to prove that a user is vaping in their office or vehicle? There is no detectable discharge so are they going to install spy cameras in every office, toilet and vehicle?
I wish the council would concentrate on the things that do matter to the public such as why we have an over paid chief executive and his deputy appearing in court this week.
Chemicals in vapour causes discolouration on material. An old friend of mine uses them and the white ceilings and sofas have been discoloured.
Sun light discolours materal too Dean, it also causes cancer of which we hear that incidence has quadrupled in forty years. Perhaps better to let the council workers stay in special accommodation, on full pay, rather than risk them going out in the sun? (Only jesting, I have to say, before someone in authority decides that is a capital idea!)
Am I on my own with being fed up with every aspect of our lives being regulated, in ever more foolish ways, by a state determined to play Nanny?
I agree with you, I’m really fed up too!
Even parks in Caerphilly ban the use of e-cigs
If they ban the use of e-cigs then they should ban the use of Nicorette Quickmist sprays which contain more chemicals than an e-cig. It’s just going to mean that people who work for the council are going to leave their e-cigs at home and probably end up back on the cigarettes, this is an aid to quit smoking and the nicotine is in the e-cigs to stop the craving for an actual cigarette.
This is the same council that has just given mcdonalds in newbridge 24 hour opening. What about encouraging obesity Caerphilly? They are just pathetic.
Smack on Jan! A lack of thinking is displayed by the council. In any case I would like the council to sort out, bin collection, potholes in roads, local pollution, school governance and a number of other issues including why a council needs to pay several of their administrators more than the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
I am looking forward to the court proceedings that will occur this week with great interest.
Cllr Richard Williams – I think you are a little misguided on the e-cig issue, smoking was banned in public and offices etc not just to try and encourage people to quit but more so that us non smokers don’t have to put up with second hand smoke, use of e-cigs also gives off smoke (vapour) so is affecting others, someone would not chew nicotine gum then force it into someone else’s mouth so the two can’t be compared.
Also I was out for food recently and someone at another table thought it was acceptable to puff on one there, I believe they should be banned from all enclosed places the same as cigs!
We will have to agree to disagree on that one Chris. The vapour given off by an E-cigarette does not affect a bystander in any measurable way. Among the examples I gave was an inhaler that does not produce steam but still must introduce minute amounts of nicotine to the atmostphere, it would be just as foolish to ban these. Like the E-cigarette they are a proven aid to reducing or giving up smoking and operate in the same way apart from the visible vapour.
Any substance in the air may, or may not, have a deleterious affect. That is for scientists to measure and risk assess. What I am absolutely certain of is that many human activities intoduce thousands of times more harmful substances to the air we breath than E-cigarettes. A few examples are, driving any sort of motor vehicle, barbeques, use of natural gas for cooking and heating (carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulates of various kinds), use of all types of aircraft, production of goods from steel to electronics, the list goes on and on.
Give me the choice of sitting in an office with several people using an E-cigarette or spending my days in a semiconductor factory, steelworks, commercial kitchen or traffic jam I will opt for the office every time. In any case a ban, as I have pointed out, is not enforcable. I am not pro-smoking and would advise anyone who does smoke to give up if they can. When technology has provided a means to do so it is madness to discourage it as this is simply encouraging people to stay with tobacco.