English Chess Forum

Has any Club or competition made a decision about the use of electronic cigarettes, either at the board or elsewhere in the playing room?

Thanks

PB

I think it came up on here before and the consensus was that vaping at the board was not allowed. That said, if an individual club wished to adopt a more liberal policy that would probably be acceptable.

Yes. At my events, electronic cigarettes are treated the same way as cigarettes. This avoids upsetting other players and local residents or the vicar.

They are allowed in the Birmingham League or at least I know of at least one player that uses them at the board.

LawrenceCooper wrote:They are allowed in the Birmingham League or at least I know of at least one player that uses them at the board.

I'm not sure they've been explicitly "allowed", per se. They've just not been explicitly banned, and someone used one in a game against you. It has been raised at a League meeting, but only as an item in AoB.

I raised this issue at the recent International Arbiters' Workshop in Brussels (25th to 27th April). I'm expecting some guidance either following a forthcoming meeting of the FIDE Rules Commission Councillors (4th to 6th June), or at the FIDE Congress in Tromso.

http://www.hr.salford.ac.uk/health-well ... =30#answer

Common sense tells me that if it looks like a cigarette, produces vapour like a cigarette and even glows like a cigarette - then people are going to think it's a cigarette. I don't have a problem with people wearing nicotine patches

They are not permitted in the Stockport League.

They are being banned at the Hastings International Chess Congress 29 December to 6 January.

I have only played in one congress where this was permitted to a player. I thought it should be classed as a disturbance to other players.

The Laws of Chess go to rather extraordinary lengths to permit people to smoke during the game, albeit in the playing venue but not the playing area. So the need of somebody to vape is catered for.
I dislike people drinking alcohol in the playing area because it sets a bad example to our many young players. I would feel the same way about vaping.
There seems to be absolutely no reason for the practice to be accepted.

At least they are odorless, I have had many situations where my opponent nips out for a crafty fag and returns to breathe all the residual smoke all over me. There should be some sort of law brought in that forces people to remain outside for a certain length of time after they have finished, so the traces of it are minimized by the time they return.

Adam Raoof wrote:Yes. At my events, electronic cigarettes are treated the same way as cigarettes. This avoids upsetting other players and local residents or the vicar.

I am reminded of what is told to Harry Potter- "There comes a time when you need to choose between what is easy and what is right." I am not a smoker and not a vaper, but I think it is pretty bad policy Adam as smoking is needlessly killing thousands of people each year.

Why do the pharmaceutical companies continually aim to fund-raise against cancer and yet at the same time try and find fault with a consumer-driven and marketed technology they didn't push and seem to resent as it is a challenger for the current pathetic alternatives on the market they would rather daily bombard the TV with and that they spent millions of pounds on e.g. patches and gum.

Basically electronic cigarettes take the death out of getting nicotine - which in itself might actually have health benefits. So basically E-Cigs normalise vaping, and de-normalise smoking with basically the potential impact of saving thousands of peoples lives each year.

But go ahead - be brainwashed by people that don't know better and basically the pharmaceutical companies who clearly have a major conflicts of interest and actually sought to try and "medicinalise" (destroy the industry in its infancy) the technology at the EU meetings a few months back. Thankfully this didn't happen and E-Cigs should take away more people from smoking each year as long as the Big Pharma doesn't try and destroy the technology.

There are now 2nd and 3rd generation E-Cig products that don't look at all like Cigarettes btw.

Potentially one of the greatest individual and public health advances in decades and people want to ban them because they "look like cigarettes". (that's the point!) Still, if people lack the capacity for critical thought....

IMO the comparison with alcohol is pretty silly really. There is little evidence to suggest that nicotine is any more harmful than caffeine. And any unproven harm that it might cause is limited to the individual. The dangers of alcohol are far more wideranging. Not that i particularly agree with the 'setting a bad example' argument on that anyway. Drinking alcohol to excess is probably setting a bad example. Drinking alcohol is normal behaviour.

It's pretty cold in Hastings in January. Don't get caught with a pen in your mouth whilst exhaling

I was not around to see it, thankfully, but from what I hear there were many players who would deliberately spend the whole game blowing smoke in the opponents face when it was allowed.

Even if they are allowed to use the electronic ones, there still needs to be protection for their opponent - nobody wants to get blown on while they are trying to concentrate, smoke or otherwise!