Should You Be Allowed To Vape At Work? Exploring Pros and Cons

As vaping becomes more popular, it is natural that many employers start wondering if they should allow their employees to vape. After all, vaping at work has been linked to potential benefits such as more productivity and a happier workplace environment. Nevertheless, what about coworkers who don't vape? Will they be bothered?

Healthier Workers

The truth is that we all know that smoking kills. According to the Center for Disease Control, smoking “is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States”. The CDC also states that tobacco smoking accounts for nearly 500,000 deaths each year.

In what concerns e-cigarettes, these are regulated to ensure that they are not only safer as they have quality. Even though they are not completely risk-free, the truth is that they are safer than tobacco cigarettes.

In the UK, for example, authorities have been promoting e-cigarettes as a safer alternative to smoking. According to the Public Health England, vaping is about 85% less harmful than smoking. In a 2016 report of the UK’s Royal College of Physicians, the conclusion was similar:  "Nicotine without smoke: tobacco harm reduction."

The Smells And Overall Fears

The truth is that vaping tends to bug a lot of people. And no one is really sure about the reasons. The reality is that while vaping is quite new, there are many people who are concerned that it may harm them someway. After all, after seeing what happened with tobacco, it isn't strange they think this way.

Above all, we believe there is a lot of misinformation about e-cigarettes. In the media, for example, they tend to be seen as dangerous and harmful products. Besides, some people simply don't like the big clouds or the intense smells that vaping can produce. 

While vaping has shown to be safe for vapers and non-vapers, we also need to consider that non-vapers need to have their own space to work. So, employers could try to reach a compromise: vaping yes, but only if you use a lower output device such as a pod mod system. After all, these don't produce bigger clouds and you can still feel satisfied while vaping.

Productivity

If you are a vaper and are trying to convince your boss to allow vaping at the workplace, then you need to use the productivity argument.

According to a 2014 study conducted by the Center for Economics and Business Research in the UK, smoke breaks cost British businesses around $14.5bn each year. This doesn't only lead to a decrease in productivity as it also increases healthcare costs. Then, there are always sick days because of smoking-related illnesses. 

Since you can simply vape at your desk, this would vanish these smoking breaks. So, employees would see the productivity of their workers increase.

Conclusion

Ultimately, we believe that this should be something defined at each one's workplace. If both vapers and non-vapers could reach a solution and a compromise about vaping at the workplace, and if everyone complies with it, the results would appear immediately.