New Petition Urges Facebook to Stop Treating Ecigs As Tobacco Products

When Kevin Price realized that Facebook classified ecigarettes as tobacco products, he was outraged. He turned to Change.org to gather support and created a petition asking Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to remove ecigs from the tobacco category and treat them as smoking cessation devices instead. The petition quickly drew attention from ecig supporters and now has more than 12,000 signatures to date.

This isn’t the first time that the ecig community has gone after Zuckerberg’s ecig related policies. Last year, Facebook refused to air ads for a documentary called “A Billion Lives”, that centers on how ecigarettes can save lives by helping smokers find freedom from tobacco addiction. When Facebook tried to censor the advertisements, the ecig community demanded that Zuckerburg allow the ads to air or otherwise confess to blatant attempts to encourage smokers to continue using tobacco. Eventually, Facebook bent to the demands and allowed the ads to air.

Facebook has always treated ecigarettes as tobacco products because of the nicotine content, but those signing the petition have argued this is unfair. Many of today’s popular ecig liquids don’t contain nicotine at all. Since ecigs have no tobacco in them, why should they be called tobacco products?

Ecig users are also sharing their personal stories through the petition’s comments in hopes of helping Zuckerberg understand the real potential for ecigs to help smokers. One supporter from Belgium said, “Vaping basically saved me. I had severe digestive issues, so I had to cut back on nicotine. I’m not completely nicotine-free all the time, but I’m down to such a low concentration that I no longer have any digestive issues, my lung capacity has drastically increased and I no longer suffer from coughing up mucus. Seriously, (ecigs are a) life changer.”

If you want to help support this movement, you can sign the petition here. Share your story of how ecigs helped you kick cigarettes to curb and together, we can all make a difference in how ecigs are perceived not only by Facebook, but by society as a whole.