King County,WA state,banning electronic cigarettes in public places?

It's getting ridiculous. They say they want you to quit smoking but they love that tax money. Now your telling me that i can't smoke an e-cigarette because it looks like a real cigarette. So maybe i shouldn't suck on a straw because that could be confused for a cigarette.

The trouble is that if everybody stopped smoking they would just raise the tax on other items to make up for the lost tax revenue.

Cigarettes are not illegal but i won't smoke one in your house or in your work place out of respect, but i'll be damned if i won't smoke one on the sidewalk out side of my house or if i'm walking to the corner store.

Of course, the only reason that e-cigarettes are receiving so much heat lately is the amount of pull the tobacco industry has over the local and federal government. If a senator is receiving money from a tobacco lobbyist (which is basically a bribe), s/he will do anything in his or her power to ensure that big tobacco's profits aren't touched.

It's so easy to tell that this is the case if you just read between the lines - taxes on cigarettes has skyrocketed in the past couple years, and there have been some concerted campaigns to get people to quit using tobacco, yet a ban on cigarettes has never been discussed. E-cigarettes are being investigated by the FDA. There's a "roll your own" establishment in my area, where you purchase a bag of tobacco, a carton of tubes, and a machine rental ($25 a carton cannot be beat) that's catching a LOT of local heat about it's operation. These things are all happening at big tobacco's behest. You're quite right - they want their money, and they'll crush any entrepreneurial enterprise before it gets off the ground.

Problem is real cigarettes are banned. When a product is made to look like the real thing how do you know when it isn't? What happens when people complain they see people all over smoking in public places and they can't or these "smokers" are risking the lives of their children (they don't know its an e-cigarette). What happens when the police stops someone in public for smoking wasting their time not knowing if its real or an e-cigarette. Many will try and get away with real cigarettes and claim it was an e-cigarette and swap it out last second for the fake one in their pocket. Police will need to check to make sure its enforced wasting valuable police resources.

What happens when someone lips off to a cop who tells them cigarettes are banned not even saying its an e-cigarette first. What if they flip off the police and refuse to cooperate? Does the police tazer them for it? What legal consquences and public opinions get twisted when its found it was an e-cig?

These aren't so easy to tell apart. They are made to look realistic (its how it tricks your mind and body). Sure no smoke but cigarettes aren't always constantly having plumes of smoke very visable.

Better not to create the potential for a major problem.