Tag: vape

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crime and punishment general freedom too much government

Pocket Prohibition?

vape, backpack, authoritarianism, surveillance,

Should the FDA outlaw backpack pockets?

Trick question. 

Oh, you said “no”? 

Okay, not that tricky . . .

But a little tricky. The FDA doesn’t want to prohibit backpack pockets as such. Only backpack pockets that can hide vaping equipment, like an e-cigarette.

Such pockets could presumably also hold a pen, thermometer, stick of beef jerky, perhaps even a plastic straw or spindled dollar bill. The list of cacheable contraband is endless. But it’s the thoughtcrime that counts.

The FDA wants to deploy its power to regulate food and drugs to also bully makers of pockets and other things that facilitate peaceful actions of which FDA officials disapprove. For now the agency is sending stern letters to sellers of legal products. 

Tomorrow it may send SWAT teams.

“The FDA is especially disturbed by some of these new products being marketed to children and teens by promoting the ease with which they can be used to conceal product use,” frets Mitch Zeller, king of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. (It’s not an emporium.)

Various products that could help a person vape furtively are on the FDA’s hit list. Many of these products never hurt a fly. Backpack pockets in particular are getting a bad rap. I’m a fan of backpack pockets and hope the production of every kind of backpack pocket will continue unabated.

So, regardless of any animus that certain functionaries may feel about the covert carrying of e-cigarettes, pencils, or swizzle sticks, let them leave backpack pockets alone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people meme Popular responsibility too much government

Overkill . . . for Your Health

vape, vaping, law, asset forfeiture, politicians,

News stories about death- and illness-by-vaping keep hitting us. But in most of these stories it is what is left out that is most alarming.

From Washington State’s King County we learn of another case of severe lung disease “associated with vaping.” But the reportage doesn’t mention how the maladies relate to vaping. “KING-TV reports there have been 15 cases of severe lung disease associated with vaping in Washington state since April 2019. . . .” Interesting as far as that goes, but. . . .

In addition to no discussion of causality, the most obvious thing not mentioned in this and similar reports? The numbers diagnosed with severe lung disease caused by smoking — which is the relevant vaping alternative.

The U.S. Government’s agency devoted to diagnosing potentially widespread pathogens and practices is, thankfully, a bit more useful. In a recently published study, scientists have narrowed down the real culprit: “Vitamin E acetate was detected in all 29 patient” samples taken from those under study. 

Most had been vaping THC.

There are organizations worse than sloppy news outlets, however. In Massachusetts, the House of Representatives has passed a bill not merely to ban flavored e-cigarettes, but also to levy 75 percent tax on all e-liquids and vaping devices. 

Typical government overkill.

But not overkill enough, for the bill doesn’t stop there. Whopping fines against those caught with unlicensed vaping products are also in the bill, as is — aaargh! — civil asset forfeiture.

The “representatives” of Massachusetts’ citizens want to take away their automobiles, boats and airplanes if they cannot prove, on the spot, their vaping products’ legality.

Politicians are far more dangerous than vaping.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies Popular too much government

E-Panic

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One of the better arguments for government relies upon sobriety: we want rational, measured responses to threats, not panicky, hot-headed reactions. We have a rule of law to prevent revenge and vendetta, replacing them with justice and civil order.

But when we expand the concept of “threat” far beyond interpersonal violence and to dangers from our own foolish or merely misguided behavior, “sobriety” too often doesn’t even seem an option.

Take drugs. 

Specifically, take “vaping.” 

That is the innovative technology of “e-cigarettes” that can be used to replace the smoking of tobacco and other drugs with inhaling drug-laced water vapor.

Vaping is far less dangerous than tobacco, at least for emphysema and lung cancer, but it is not harmless. Several hundred people across several of these United States have become very ill and a few have died of a mysterious lung disease.

So of course the Surgeon General calls it an epidemic, and the White House and Congress take up the cause to regulate and even prohibit vaping. And India just “became the latest country to ban electronic cigarettes,” according to Bloomberg. 

Whoa, the subject has barely been studied, and what we know so far is that it was not major-brand nicotine e-liquid, but, instead, boutique product that has caused most of the casualties. 

The leap to legislation has been too quick for consumers to alter their own behavior with new information.

Besides, prohibition and regulation haven’t worked to prevent the current opiate overdose crisis.

The rush to “do something very, very strong,” as President Trump puts it, is the very opposite of why we say we want government.

Its lack of sobriety is . . . sobering.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment folly free trade & free markets ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

A Vapor’s Chance in Hell

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There is a big difference between government designed to protect our rights and a government tasked with protecting us from ourselves.

You couldn’t find a better example of this than the current Federal Drug Administration and its regulation of vaping.

Vaping is the imbibing of water vapor laced with nicotine and other ingredients. It is designed to replace the smoking of tobacco cigarettes. It is much, much less harmful than smoking. The genius of this innovation is that while it looks a lot like smoking, it involves no smoke. But it does involve inhaling, and blowing out wisps of . . . well, vapor.

It’s safer than smoking because smoking tobacco involves burning organic (and inorganic) matter, which puts tars and other chemical substances into one’s lungs.

But the competing companies that make the product are not allowed to tell us about its advantages.

New regulations of the e-cigarette industry from the FDA prohibit a lot of truth-telling in advertising. “Even if a few companies survive the shakeout caused by the FDA’s onerous regulations,” Jacob Sullum writes in Reason, “they will not be allowed to tell consumers the truth about their products.” It appears that “any intimation that noncombustible, tobacco-free e-cigarettes are safer than the conventional, tobacco-burning kind” places them under a category that simply must “be marketed only with prior approval.”

The legal judgments Sullum quotes will make you sicker . . . than your first cigarette puff.

Paternalistic government designed to save us from our vices ends up blocking us from actually lessening the bad effect of those vices.

Some help.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo credit: micadew on Flickr