Video: The Five on E‑Cigs

The innovation of e‑cigarettes seems a major advance. Instead of smoking tobacco, complete with its carcinogenic tars clogging up lungs, one inhales water vapor imbued with a liquid containing a concentration of nicotine. And so of course there’s a political movement to ban the things, or at least heavily regulate them. The specified reason for most of these regulations or prohibitions is that “vaping” looks like smoking.

But it isn’t smoking. It’s much, much safer. So, argues Greg Gutfeld, the practice of vaping will save lives:

Not mentioned in this discussion (on Fox News’s evening talk show The Five) is the possible puritanism behind the move. The five Democratic politicians who are moving against the technology recognize, I am sure, that e‑cigs are nicotine-​delivery systems. To be against nicotine is to be against “addiction.” And, on this very simplistic view, for “health.”

But as mentioned by more than one of Fox’s talking heads, it’s hard to support free needle distribution on the one hand, and prohibit or “crack down” on e‑cigs, on the other.

Strange world.