Trump Administration Weighs Ban on Flavored E-Cigarettes
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Also, they didn't ban flavored alcohol or flavored THC products.
They really need to stop being a nanny state about adults and stop use the agenda of (Think of the children!) bans.
Kids (Young Adults) did start using juul, because gas stations could sell them easily, 7-11 banned those juice flavors awhile ago.
The Feds banned an entire market for adults, that has nothing related to the THC vitamin E grease fiasco...
Vaping is hell of a lot healthier than smoking, but of course not-smoking is best. But I hate when nanny stats bann something for political reasons, just like they are doing with trans fats (donut scare!) or cities with sugary drink taxes.
Video showing cotton balls with smoking vs vaping, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pwj6BuS8Ds
You're implying trans fats are fine and the only reason to ban them is political, despite the heavy link with heart disease and other issues?
It's not for political reasons, it's because the people enacting the legislation _believe_ that the government's role is to ban these. You can have a different philosophy about the role of government and disagree with the legislation, but that doesn't mean it's done for "political reasons".
To me, legislation for political reasons would be where you legislate something you may not truly believe in to order to satisfy a small minority (e.g. corn subsidies for Iowans) or to advance some exclusively political agenda (e.g. voter re-districting legislation).
Amount of money that States in the Master Settlement Agreement profited from tobacco sales this year: $27 billion
Amount of tax revenue States collected on tobacco in 2018: $12.86 billion
Number of people killed by tobacco last year: 480,000
Number of States that spend the CDC-recommended amount on tobacco prevention programs: 0
Number of states that have made efforts to ban tobacco: 0
https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/what-we-do/us/statereport
https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/tobacco-tax-revenue
https://www.statista.com/statistics/248964/revenues-from-tob...
https://cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_fac...
Do you suggest that states should ban tobacco? I think that would be a mistake, judging by the effects of alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and the current war on drugs.
The main issue with this is, like guns and alcohol, localities and states all have differences of opinion, so that ends up not meaning much in practice when someone can just drive over the county line to get their cheaper fix. State and city level whack-a-mole is an intractable problem.
With a black market product, your only form of redress for any issues that may arise from commercial activity surrounding that product is an incredible, and preferably disproportionate amount of physical violence.
Tell that to all the people who are still buying weed from dealers in states where recreational is legal (and taxed highly).
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
"We don't know the long-term effects" is usually put forward as an argument. However, preliminary evidence is pretty strong that they're orders of magnitude less harmful.
Putting e-cigarettes, (which look like they might save hundreds of thousands to millions of lives if all smokers switched to them) in line with cigarettes is potentially a public health catastrophe.
Vaping what, exactly?
This whole situation is like if the government allowed (and profited in the billions on sales of) heroin, and a small industry sprang up selling methadone pills. A few people who took some unknown kind of pill got sick or died, and the government then makes moves to shut down the methadone industry.
People want action now because the numbers are low now, and if a couple of years from now we find out things aren't so bad, presumably deep-pocketed companies will push for rescinding the laws.
It's not great, but it's hardly realistic to expect politicians to make laws based on science, even in administrations that aren't anti-science on the record.
The difference with speeding, drinking alcohol, and eating meat is that the government has active measures to make them safer. With smoking weed (specifically vaping) the regulatory environment forbids reputable labs from performing quality control, and the FDA isn't helping whatsoever with regulating the purity of the products.
What I'm getting at is that it's government policy, specifically the lack of FDA regulation/testing of THC vaping products, that is killing people.
The voting public overwhelmingly supports legalization, and the politicians' refusal to enact public policy that fulfills this wish and reduces harm is the problem. Congress has the blood of these victims of tainted product on their own hands.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/03/mint-that-...
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-08-29/philip...
Which look at that, Juul is NOT banned because they are owned by the aforementioned companies.
This is regulatory capture at its finest.
The settlement money isn't suppose to be for prevention programs, it's to bolster public health institutions who are saddle with providing health care for tobacco related diseases that are a direct result of the misleading practices from the tobacco industry.
> Number of States that spend the CDC-recommended amount on tobacco prevention programs: 0
How much does the CDC recommend? How much are they spending? Your statement is designed to trick the reader into thinking states aren't spending any money.
Details are in the links below the facts I listed.
I'm all for taking new steps to reduce the troubling increase in teen use of nicotine. Also, cigarettes should not be nearly so cheap: they should carry taxes that fully offset the health impact so smokers are not free riders. (This would add $10 per pack to the price.)
However, freedom means adults should be free to make their own choices—even if they're bad ones—as long as they bear the costs. It's appropriate for government to persuade, but not to choose.
I have found that such black-and-white sentiments are common here in the US, and surprisingly missing a lot of very importance nuance.
So... you will never use publicly funded (often emergency) healthcare? Do you really understand the risks that you are taking? Are you sure that the risks have been accurately and understandably explained? Are you sure that only adults will be targeted? Are you sure that commercial interests are not lying or exaggerating to you?
I remember analogous arguments in the late 70's / early 80's regarding the use of seat belts. "It's my body! I know the risks!"
It is the role of a functioning society to find a way to help protect its own members from non-obvious, long-term harm. We can argue if government regulation is the proper outlet, and we can argue about efficiency and details, but... no no sane world does a "I can damned well do whatever I want!" attitude build a safe, equitable society.
Mandating that seat belts be available in vehicles for those that choose to use them and making it annoying to not do so is a far cry from banning an entire category of product.
When the overweight start getting hauled off to prison I'll find this argument compelling.
In public opinion, this is shaping up to be another tour-de-force showcasing the defective actors of our democracy. Starring, in order of appearance:
1 Moms that want the government to do their parenting, as the technology doesn't yet exist to Black Mirror them. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkangel_(Black_Mirror))
2 Obnoxiously smug people that are willing to outlaw anything that doesn't affect them if there is morale high-ground to stand on
3 Corrupt politicians dressing up a power-move or money-grab in the name of protecting the children/public health
4 A recent but powerful entrant, Facebook users that have conjured degrees in both Medicine and Statistics, rapidly propagating the most poorly reasoned, common denominated, premature-birth-of-a-coherent-argument to all of their friends and family
Good times!
Title is editorialized; should read "Are Planning To Ban" or the like.
https://academic.oup.com/ntr/article/21/3/267/5041976#target....
Just like how the vaporizers are often sold as for 'potpourri'.
Which is highly likely to increase the percentage of vapers using unsafe ingredients and exacerbate the current health crisis. Hooray for progress!
Original title: "Trump Administration Weighs Ban on Flavored E-Cigarettes"
NYT is known for changing their headlines; did they get this wrong in the first place? If not, the submitted title broke the HN guidelines: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."