Posted on 02/28/2020 6:33:47 AM PST by Kaslin
We can all agree that the recent trend of teen vaping is cause for concern. As a trained Pediatric nurse practitioner, I understand the harm nicotine can have on a developing adolescent brain, but attempts to ban vaping products runs an even greater risk of exposing individuals to higher risk alternatives in an unregulated black market.
The recent congressional vaping hearing appears to be a part of a larger campaign to chip away at the rights of legal adult citizens to use nicotine products. Even if those nicotine vaping products are a critical part of harm reduction by transitioning traditional tobacco smokers to a significantly less harmful product.
The recent national outbreak of e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) has, no doubt, spurred lawmakers into the nanny-state mode of attempting to solve the epidemic without a full understanding of the underlying causes. After studying national and state data from patient reports and product sample testing, the CDC concluded that counterfeit products are linked to most of the cases surrounding the recent outbreak.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) has introduced legislation that would take all flavored tobacco products off the market, including menthol cigarettes, flavored cigars and popular forms of flavored dip. Teen use of these products are at historic lows, so it leads one to wonder what problem Rep. Pallone is trying to solve.
Rep. Pallone’s bill would also have major negative consequences on the law enforcement community. This ban would create a new illegal market for illicit tobacco products, an increase in criminal activity, an increase in costs for law enforcement and ultimately a higher tax burden. Undoubtedly, this will create further tension between law enforcement and the people they are hired to serve and protect.
The hypocrisy of such a proposal is also on full display when you look at their record of supporting the complete recreational legalization of marijuana. “Let the state tax and regulate it,” Rep. Pallone said regarding legalizing recreational marijuana. Inexplicably, many of the same folks leading the crusade for the prohibition of flavored tobacco products have come out in support of recreational marijuana.
Youth use of e-cigarettes surpassed that of traditional cigarettes in 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But President Obama made little to no action to address what was becoming a public health concern. In a knee jerk reaction, Democrats are attempting to take things too far and are promoting prohibitionist policies that we know don’t work and often cause more harm than good.
Innovative, market-driven solutions to helping people quit smoking have led to fewer Americans smoking and more quitting than ever before. These alternative products are not completely risk free, but they reduce the harm incurred by traditional cigarettes. Blanket bans have the potential to upend the recent gains made over the past few years and push those addicted to nicotine back to smoking cigarettes or toward dangerous black-market products.
Representative Pallone and other Congressional Democrats should focus their time and resources on the real public health concern, not on prohibiting legal adults from freely choosing to use tobacco products. Providing consumers with safe choices and increasing public awareness of the dangers associated with the risks of various products will lead to more effective results than legislative bans. Lawmakers should avoid policies that will affect millions of adults who rely on the availability of these products as a way to improve their overall health. Instead, they should embrace any and all alternatives that reduce dependency on tobacco.
Anything Conservatives don’t like, even things some Liberals don’t like but Progressives do, will create an “underground” market, be it drugs or back alley abortions. File this under same old same old.
Much like marijuana. Prohibition only made the product even MORE sought after, and a large illicit market grew up, fueled by a typical degree of rebellion and flouting of the law.
Legalize it and tax the hell out of it.
If there is no risk of “second hand smoke” i don’t care.
Except it is the same as any “drug” or carcinogen (marijuana) ..later on when the user has health issues they should not be entitled to health care...live with your choice or quit.
Although, i know that is not what will happen..As it always is...other people will pay for other people’s poor choices.
And regulate it. Allowing vaping products to be sold at every convenience store is what created this mess. The time for restrictions was at the outset, when no data existed. Requiring a prescription from a doctor is all it would have taken, after all they are a delivery device for the highly addictive drug, nicotine. Any adult wishing to use them would have been able to do so, but not kids.
All the more reason to vote in an dictatorship with draconian laws . . . . or so the liberals (democrat socialists) would like to enact. This is the ideal environment for Bernie (If it saves just one childs life) who loves every regime and every dictator he met.
Plus pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, contaminated water, etc.
And people are ingesting this. Yeah, it's harmless. /s
"Smoking tobacco is bad, m'kay? But pot is harmless."
Yeah. Got it.
“Requiring a prescription from a doctor...”
It doesn’t require a prescription to buy cigarettes, nicotine gum, or nicotine patches, so that is just a silly idea. It would be like making chewable aspirin prescription only when every other form of aspirin is not.
One of the reasons I am a libertarian...
Simply declaring something verbotten will not stop people from wanting it or wanting to do it. And a certain %age will go ahead and violate the law for that ‘something’.
A lot of activity currently illegal would be a much better deal for all involved and the rest of us if the government ignored it.
Plus pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, contaminated water, etc.
Yes, just as Prohibition-era bathtub gin was of unknown composition. I think that was clearly an argument against Prohibition, not for it.
Legalize it and tax the hell out of it.
Taxing the hell out of it allows the illicit market to remain large. Tax it enough to pay for the regulation enforcement and education that will discourage use.
The Euros has a much different approach to vaping - they generally say it’s much better for a person to do light vaping than smoking actual cigs.
“.As it always is...other people will pay for other people’s poor choices.”
With other people’s money...
But are conservatives at risk for use of dope?
See study below:
That’s racist, to say only blacks would vape, with a prohibition.
~ AOC
/s
Yeah let’s ban Vaping and Online Gambling and Lightbulbs
I’m so happy to be part of the party of smaller government
There are no carcinogens in legal (nicotine) vaping products, that is why it’s a harm reducer.
Going after vaping while cigarettes are still legal is pretty retarded.
I’m still confused what part of the Constitution empowers the FedGov to ban any kind of vaping product?
What’s so different about vapes from alcohol, that one required a Constitutional amendment, while the other can be banned willy-nilly?
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