Ever since the abominable Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, giving oversight over tobacco to the FDA, was passed in 2009, I and many of my colleagues in public health have watched in disbelief and horror as the crusade against e-cigarettes swung into high gear. It seemed for a moment as though the Golden Age had come to pass regarding smoking: the twin goals of FDA regulation and a truly low-risk method of delivering nicotine to addicted smokers without the lethal tar was at hand, at last.
Then the prize slipped through our fingers like sand: the FDA and all of the other federal health agencies (especially the CDC) led a crusade against these disruptive devices, initially trying to simply ban them as drug delivery devices (alongside a propaganda campaign alluding to various toxins in their vapor, all imaginary). When the federal courts blocked that path, the drug agency decided to enforce the Tobacco Control Act in the most stringent manner by promulgating a regulatory schema deeming e-cigs and vapor products as candidates for regulation as tobacco — despite their total lack of that substance. Such over-regulation would effectively ban these products, despite their proven and accelerating popularity among smokers trying to quit. The anti-vaping crusade has since been eagerly joined by most of the academic centers, “public health” nonprofits, and politicians far and wide, ostensibly to “protect our children from Big Tobacco.”
Of course, as soon as your hear a politician chant the “for the children” mantra, get ready to have your pocket picked. And, no surprise, the real motivation behind these campaigns became clear: follow the money. Once that realization came, the whole issue became clear, depressingly so.
Via: American Spectator
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