Vaping Etiquette: How to Vape Without Bothering Others
Have you ever seen a fellow vaper walking down the street or sitting in a park? If so, was that person blowing enormous clouds into the air? Could that person have even been … you? We hate to tell you this, but most non-vapers find it kind of – well – obnoxious when vapers walk around creating their own personal weather systems in public. Even cigarette smoke doesn’t hover in the air quite as long as today’s massive glycerine-infused vapour clouds seem to – and, to be honest, non-vapers don’t like that very much.
Scientists almost universally agree that vaping is significantly less dangerous than smoking and that, if you’re unable to quit smoking, vaping is almost definitely your next best option. That doesn’t mean, however, that vaping carries no more risk than breathing. Just as you should have every right as an adult to vape, others also have the right not to be around it just as they have the right not to be around people who are smoking. This, then, is your definitive guide to vaping etiquette. You don’t want to be that obnoxious “vape bro” and have people whispering about you behind your back. Here’s how to avoid it.
How to Practice Vaping Etiquette Outdoors
It’s certainly enjoyable to vape outdoors, but that’s where you’re most likely to encounter people who don’t vape and may not want to be around it. That’s especially true during the current COVID-19 pandemic. If you’re vaping, you’re not wearing a mask – and if you’re not wearing a mask, strangers who happen to be around you in public aren’t likely may not be very happy about that.
If you do vape in public, make sure you’re in a place where smoking is allowed. If smoking isn’t allowed, you shouldn’t vape. You should also make sure that you’re a reasonable distance away from strangers who may not want to inhale the vapour.
Two additional points of etiquette to consider when vaping outdoors:
·Consider using a lower-output vaping device like a pod system when you vape outside your home – even if you normally use something more powerful like a box mod with a sub-ohm tank. Non-vapers often find enormous vapour clouds obnoxious.
·Consider switching to a neutral-flavoured e-liquid when you vape outside your home. Obviously, pretty much every e-liquid on the planet smells better than cigarette smoke. With that being said, though, strangers might not feel particularly happy about walking behind you if you’re enveloped in a blue raspberry or cotton candy haze.
How to Practice Vaping Etiquette Indoors
The first thing you need to know about vaping indoors in New Zealand is that it’s forbidden wherever smoking isn’t allowed. The indoor vaping and smoking ban covers all public buildings except vape shops, which are excepted because it’s often necessary to show new vapers how to set up and use their equipment.
If you’re in a private building, it might not be illegal to vape – but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t still exercise common courtesy. Unless you’re around people who also vape, you really should ask if anyone minds before you start puffing.
“Hey, can I hit your JUUL?”
There’s a good chance that you’ve heard of stealth vaping. Maybe you’ve even enjoyed a surreptitious puff once or twice in places where you shouldn’t have. Stealth vaping is certainly tempting; if you hold the vapour in your lungs long enough, you’ll appear to exhale plain air – and no one will be the wiser, right?
New Zealand’s vaping regulations don’t prohibit vaping in your car except when a minor is present. If a child is in your car, do not vape; period. Police have also issued citations to people for vaping when it appeared that vaping was causing an impediment to safe driving. If you’re driving around with an enormous vapour cloud in your car, people are going to notice; open a window. If vaping while driving is reducing your ability to concentrate on the road, stop – and if you’re an RDA user, don’t ever attempt to drip and drive. Dripping requires two hands, so there’s no way to do it safely while driving. Ultimately, if you’re going to vape in your car, it is always your responsibility to ensure that doing so doesn’t distract you from the task at hand.
The vape bros are the people who give vapers everywhere a bad name. They’re the ones who sit around in vape shops all day rambling about the flavour profiles of their lemon-almond-biscotti-custard-doughnut e-liquids and blowing enormous clouds that cloak everything around them in sugary sweetness. They’re the ones who chuckle smugly about the thought of anyone vaping with anything less than a triple-battery mod and a hand-twisted RDA coil.
Ultimately, it is every vaper’s desire to see smoking stamped out for good – and nothing scares an older smoker out of a vape shop faster than a gaggle of cloud bros chucking clouds, laughing about lesser vaping equipment and casting sideways glances at newcomers.
These days, vaping etiquette really isn’t so different from smoking etiquette. In the beginning, part of the appeal of vaping was that it made it possible to “smoke anywhere” because vaping wasn’t smoking and therefore wasn’t covered by regulations that prohibited public smoking. The governments of the world quickly put a stop to that. Today, in virtually the entire developed world, any regulation that prohibits smoking in a given place also prohibits vaping in that place.