These days, vaping etiquette isn’t so different from smoking etiquette. This is your definitive guide to vaping etiquette from the team at Premium Vape.

Have you ever seen a fellow vaper walking down the street or sitting in a park? If so, was that person blowing enormous clouds into the air? Could that person have even been … you? We hate to tell you this, but most non-vapers find it kind of – well – obnoxious when vapers walk around creating their own personal weather systems in public. Even cigarette smoke doesn’t hover in the air quite as long as today’s massive glycerine-infused vapour clouds seem to – and, to be honest, non-vapers don’t like that very much.

Scientists almost universally agree that vaping is significantly less dangerous than smoking and that, if you’re unable to quit smoking, vaping is almost definitely your next best option. That doesn’t mean, however, that vaping carries no more risk than breathing. Just as you should have every right as an adult to vape, others also have the right not to be around it just as they have the right not to be around people who are smoking. This, then, is your definitive guide to vaping etiquette. You don’t want to be that obnoxious “vape bro” and have people whispering about you behind your back. Here’s how to avoid it.

How to Practice Vaping Etiquette Outdoors

It’s certainly enjoyable to vape outdoors, but that’s where you’re most likely to encounter people who don’t vape and may not want to be around it. That’s especially true during the current COVID-19 pandemic. If you’re vaping, you’re not wearing a mask – and if you’re not wearing a mask, strangers who happen to be around you in public aren’t likely may not be very happy about that.

If you do vape in public, make sure you’re in a place where smoking is allowed. If smoking isn’t allowed, you shouldn’t vape. You should also make sure that you’re a reasonable distance away from strangers who may not want to inhale the vapour.

Two additional points of etiquette to consider when vaping outdoors:

• Consider using a lower-output vaping device like a pod system when you vape outside your home – even if you normally use something more powerful like a box mod with a sub-ohm tank. Non-vapers often find enormous vapour clouds obnoxious.
• Consider switching to a neutral-flavoured e-liquid when you vape outside your home. Obviously, pretty much every e-liquid on the planet smells better than cigarette smoke. With that being said, though, strangers might not feel particularly happy about walking behind you if you’re enveloped in a blue raspberry or cotton candy haze.

How to Practice Vaping Etiquette Indoors

The first thing you need to know about vaping indoors in New Zealand is that it’s forbidden wherever smoking isn’t allowed. The indoor vaping and smoking ban covers all public buildings except vape shops, which are excepted because it’s often necessary to show new vapers how to set up and use their equipment.

If you’re in a private building, it might not be illegal to vape – but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t still exercise common courtesy. Unless you’re around people who also vape, you really should ask if anyone minds before you start puffing.

Don’t Ask if You Can Hit That JUUL®

“Hey, can I hit your JUUL®?”

Sharing a vape at work or on college campuses used to be the equivalent of “bumming a smoke” back in the day. The big difference, though, is that after that vape has been in your mouth, it’s going right back into the owner’s mouth. Even before COVID-19, sharing a vape was a bad idea from a hygiene standpoint. Today, though, it’s a potentially deadly idea.

Asking to hit someone’s vape isn’t just a bad idea from a safety standpoint; it’s also incredibly poor etiquette. Just don’t do it.

Don’t Try to Vape Where You Shouldn’t

There’s a good chance that you’ve heard of stealth vaping. Maybe you’ve even enjoyed a surreptitious puff once or twice in places where you shouldn’t have. Stealth vaping is certainly tempting; if you hold the vapour in your lungs long enough, you’ll appear to exhale plain air – and no one will be the wiser, right?

The problem is that “stealth vaping” effectively doesn’t exist these days. If you’re hiding your vape in your sleeve and constantly bringing your arm up to your mouth, pretty much everyone is going to know what you’re doing. You won’t just look bad; you could end up getting into serious trouble if you’re trying to vape in a place where you shouldn’t. If your need for nicotine is so great that you need to vape almost constantly, consider carrying some nicotine pouches or lozenges to use in places where vaping isn’t allowed.

Use Caution When Vaping in Your Car

New Zealand’s vaping regulations don’t prohibit vaping in your car except when a minor is present. If a child is in your car, do not vape; period. Police have also issued citations to people for vaping when it appeared that vaping was causing an impediment to safe driving. If you’re driving around with an enormous vapour cloud in your car, people are going to notice; open a window. If vaping while driving is reducing your ability to concentrate on the road, stop – and if you’re an RDA user, don’t ever attempt to drip and drive. Dripping requires two hands, so there’s no way to do it safely while driving. Ultimately, if you’re going to vape in your car, it is always your responsibility to ensure that doing so doesn’t distract you from the task at hand.

Don’t Be a Vape Bro

The vape bros are the people who give vapers everywhere a bad name. They’re the ones who sit around in vape shops all day rambling about the flavour profiles of their lemon-almond-biscotti-custard-doughnut e-liquids and blowing enormous clouds that cloak everything around them in sugary sweetness. They’re the ones who chuckle smugly about the thought of anyone vaping with anything less than a triple-battery mod and a hand-twisted RDA coil.

Don’t be a vape bro.

Ultimately, it is every vaper’s desire to see smoking stamped out for good – and nothing scares an older smoker out of a vape shop faster than a gaggle of cloud bros chucking clouds, laughing about lesser vaping equipment and casting sideways glances at newcomers.

In addition, it’s important to remember that regardless of your e-liquid flavour preferences and the type of vaping hardware that you use, taste is subjective. It’s likely that other people enjoy their vaping setups just as much as you enjoy yours. You gain nothing by criticising others’ vaping preferences.

Remember the Golden Rule of Vaping Etiquette

These days, vaping etiquette really isn’t so different from smoking etiquette. In the beginning, part of the appeal of vaping was that it made it possible to “smoke anywhere” because vaping wasn’t smoking and therefore wasn’t covered by regulations that prohibited public smoking. The governments of the world quickly put a stop to that. Today, in virtually the entire developed world, any regulation that prohibits smoking in a given place also prohibits vaping in that place.

The golden rule of vaping is really quite simple. Before you vape somewhere, ask yourself if you would feel completely comfortable smoking a cigarette there. If the answer to that question is “no,” then it isn’t the right place for vaping either.

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