E-cigarettes in a museum?!

An interesting post on American Alliance of Museum's LinkedIn page about policies on e-cigarettes in a museum.  An e-cigarette is a cigarette.  Sure, there is water vapor instead of smoke being emitted from the cigarette but it's still vapor.  Water vapor affects relative humidity, which affects your collections/exhibits.

And what is in these e-cigarettes?  Someone I work with smokes an e-cigarette and she mentioned there is still nicotine in it.  Plus, what other chemicals are in an e-cigarette?  I'm not sure, but I'm sure there are other things in them.  Not to mention the flavoring that can be added to an e-cigarette; so it's possible to have a Skittles scented water vapor cloud floating through your museum.  Is that really better than a gray, nicotine cloud?  I don't think so.

I understand e-cigarettes are used to help smokers stop smoking but smokers wouldn't light a cigarette inside a museum, so why would an e-cigarette be permitted?  There seems to be confusion about how to define smoking.  In my opinion putting something in your mouth and inhaling then exhaling smoke or vapors is still smoking.

If you want to smoke, I say smoke.  But respect others and respect the museum and its collections.  I don't think banning e-cigarettes is any different that banning food and drink near collections.  People can be addicted to eating just as much as to smoking, but we expect food addicts to control themselves in a museum so e-cigarette smokers should be expected to control their smoking while in a museum!