Summary: The Dangers Of Electronic Nicotine Smoking

The undisclosed dangers of electronic nicotine delivery systems, also known as electronic cigarettes, pose a huge risk to our cutters and our people. E-Ciggs, as they are commonly referred to in the fleet, use lithium ion batteries to deliver the vapor and nicotine mix to the user. To date, there have been eight cases in the United States Navy, two of which resulted in a fire fighting team being used to extinguish the fires. The devices are not rugged enough to handle the abuse of the environment or mishandling by the owner. Lithium ion batteries in these devices have been reported to experience a thermal runaway failure and ignite into a fire and have the potential to spread quickly. It is critical that we enforce a ban on these devices on
Burning lithium ion batteries are oxi-dizers, and difficult to extinguish with standard carbon dioxide or dry chemical extinguishers. Give that many of these devices would be charged in the user’s berthing space, they are typically kept near combustible bedding and clothing. Fires in berthing areas typically will spread very rap-idly and have a huge potential to spread to adjacent compartments. Because of the intensity of the type of resulting fires, a combined damage control effort would be needed to extinguish these fires. The risk to our people becomes significantly higher because of the intensity of these classes of fire. Delta fires have a huge potential to spread rapidly and require advanced training to
Injuries to personnel from poorly constructed batteries, and potential fires on our ships are simply not in alignment with our unit fire marshal programs and best practices for fire prevention. Their use must be restricted onboard our ships. Until a properly tested stowage system is developed, E-Ciggs are too dangerous to be kept on our ships. The United States Navy has just recently banned their use aboard their ships. (Merrit, 2017) The Coast Guard must do the same. It is only a matter of time before a Coast Guard ship, or Coast Guardsman experiences a casualty from these