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W.Va. health boards weighing e-cigarette bans

Exponent Telegram photo by Ashlie Walter Melissa Whitehair, assistant manager at Smoketime Sam’s Tobacco Outlet in Clarksburg, restocks the e-cigarettes and its various accessories.
Exponent Telegram photo by Ashlie Walter
Melissa Whitehair, assistant manager at Smoketime Sam’s Tobacco Outlet in Clarksburg, restocks the e-cigarettes and its various accessories.

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — With the controversy over the safety of electronic cigarettes, a few local health departments are thinking of adding the devices to the items prohibited under their clean indoor air acts.

Electronic cigarettes are battery-operated products that turn nicotine, which is highly addictive, and other chemicals into a vapor that is inhaled by the user.

When creating its clean indoor act last year, the Lewis County Health Department included a clause banning electronic cigarettes. At the time, the controversy over their safety was why they were included, Administrator Genevieve Ruble said.

Currently, electronic cigarettes are not included in Harrison County’s clean indoor air act, Administrator Chad Bundy.

The Harrison-Clarksburg Board of Health has not discussed it yet, but Bundy thinks members need to take a look at including the devices in the act.

Barbour County Health Department Administrator Annette Santilli said that department has not included electronic cigarettes in its indoor air policy yet.

At its last board of health meeting, there was a presentation from the local tobacco prevention representative about the devices, she said.

“We’re moving in that direction but I think we need more information; more research and studying needs to be done,” Santilli said.

Officials are unclear if the vapor emitted by the devices is safe for public health…

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