Public Nanny Bans E-Cigarettes

"In one of his last acts in his lamentable career as a public nanny," National Review observes,

outgoing New York mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a law banning the use of so-called electronic cigarettes -- which are notable for not being cigarettes and contain no tobacco -- anywhere smoking is prohibited. E-cigarettes are devices that deliver nicotine to those who desire it without producing smoke -- the "smoke" they produce is water vapor, which human beings inhale and exhale with every breath. E-cigarette "smoke" also contains propylene glycol, which Broadway-loving New Yorkers should know as stage smoke. The use of e-cigarettes looks like smoking, and so offends the tender sensibilities of Nurse Bloomberg and those of his oddball puritanical bent. The law is a literal triumph of form over substance.