Now I’m no expert on these E-cigarette doodads, but my understanding is that they are:

[Berni]

a/ not cigarettes;
b/ give off no smoke, harmful emissions or odour; and
c/ represent no threat to public health or welfare whatsoever.

Given these things, what possible justification can there be for banning their use in public? Because they look a bit like someone’s smoking and even that idea is offensive?

Anti-smokers really are joyless, miserable, anti-human, fascist scum. :-(

[Monty91]

was using them and it was very distracting.

[Berni]

You might as well say you find gum chewers distracting.

[Monty91]

to use one in an enclosed space where it may be distracting/unpleasant for others and you have not had express permission to do so.

Banned in public, no.

[Pat Vegas]

either someone is losing money from these e-cigs and they want to drive their sales down. (government/cigarette companies)

or perhaps
When rules are made people don't like people trying to get around them. They said no smoking indoors so they will make it so you can't even smoke a harmless alternative in doors.

Then there are the freaks who take far too much interest in telling other people how to live.

[Berni]

no matter how old. They don't just want to stop people smoking, they want to eradicate the existence of smoking as a historical and cultural fact. The very existence of these things that look and behave a bit like fags offends them hugely and they're really angry that they can't come up with a really valid reason to get rid of them.

[Berni]

And as for 'distracting', I'm just mystified. Lots of things other humans do are distracting. I don't expect them to ask my permission, though.

[Jake]

I think everyone needs to stop being such a f**king flimsy tart about these things tbh.

[Billy Goat Sverige]

Although you can't smoke in those places. Still, some of the things you have to see when people eat in public can be stomach churning.

[Monty91]

properties).

Even when smoking was allowed indoors, you would often have people in restaurants asking neighbouring diners if they minded. Good manners, see?

Asking permission is of course not so essential when there is no odour or health risks involved, but the fact it does create a visible fog and that many people may mistake it for an actual cigarette means a quick check would not go amiss.

[Jake]

Not for me, unless I'm c**ted of course.

[Monty91]

be banned.

[Berni]

these things are and says 'no' on some utterly specious health grounds. In which case, they have to be ignored, which causes trouble. Also, to ask is to effectively admit that there's something wrong or intrusive about using one of these things which there isn't at all. I don't have to ask permission to laugh loudly, express opinions to which others may object or eat pungent foodstuffs and those are, if anything, more intrusive than someone inhaling or exhaling water vapour.

[Rich]

or not e-cigarettes are harmful to health in the long term.

There will almost certainly be consequences to be felt of long term and sustained usage. However, it's impossible to know what they'll be.

The concern is that, by allowing people to do this in bars and other public places, more people will take the habit up and in 20 years we will have huge issues with various manifestations of cancer/misc illness.

[Monty91]

already almost an entire generation who have become accustomed to not seeing people smoke in doors and for whom to see someone doing so would actually be quite startling. The sight of an enclosed space full of people using e-cigarettes would have this same effect on people, and will do so until such a point that they are as ubiquitous as normal cigarettes once were.

Secondly, it depends on context. In a crowded pub, I would not really care at all if someone used an e-cigarette without asking me first. But in a small dining room with 8 tables, like the one I was in last week? I would consider it thoughtful for someone to at least let me know they are about to use one and they hope it’s ok.

[Berni]

The ingredients (glycol, water, nicotine, flavourings), purity of ingredients, electrical safety and so on are already governed by over a dozen EU safety regulations. So what exactly are you going to test for?

Besides, since when did we ban things first and then wait for the evidence to justify doing so?

[Monty91]

thing?

[Berni]

permission to indulge that behaviour, then it behoves you to come up with a better reason for doing so than "I'm ignorant, a bit thick and I fear things I don't understand."

The onus here is on the ignorant to self-educate and adjust, not the users to be unduly sensitive.

[Berni]

And there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that people go from e-cigarettes to the other kind. In fact, the trend is in entirely the other direction.

[Pat Vegas]

in case they do a crime.

[Monty91]

you’re obviously not really asking their permission. You’re going through the charade of asking their permission, and if they say "no", you call them a **** under your breath, move to a table slightly further away (but close enough to still piss them off) and light (switch?) up.

[Pat Vegas]

has no nope.

When normal smoking was allowed in the pub did it make everybody smoke?

[Berni]

object, take the opportunity to politely educate them as to why their objections are invalid and their fears unfounded. Should they continue to object, you may then ignore them with a clear conscience.