The war on e-cigarettes…
…reminds me of the war on little schoolkids making gun gestures with their hands.
Instead of worrying about the thing itself, people are worrying about a simulacrum of the thing.
Why would people who are against smoking because of its unhealthful and unpleasant effects be against something that markedly and dramatically reduces those effects both for the smoker and those around him/her? E-cigarettes are more effective in the difficult process of quitting smoking than other methods are, and they are cheaper.
Is the campaign against them in part to protect the drug industry’s corner on the stop-smoking market? That’s probably at least part of the reason. Still another, though, is that the anti-smoking contingent has in recent years taken on a quasi-religious crusading and fanatical aspect. Everything about cigarettes is evil, evil, evil, and anything resembling a cigarette is to be stomped out.
Will these, sophisticated treat of my cigarette-smoke-wreathed (my mother was a heavy smoker till I was about 9) youth, be next on the hit list?:
Once I wrote that last sentence and found that photo and added it to the post, I began to wonder if I wasn’t in fact behind the times. Have candy cigarettes already been banned? It would seem that way:
Candy cigarettes have officially been banned by the Food and Drug Administration.
The ban is a part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act. Officials have been arguing for years to eliminate candy cigarettes because of the likelihood that children would eventually move on to the real thing.
A recent poll revealed that 22 percent of current or one-time smokers ate candy cigarettes during their childhood. On the contrary, just 14 percent of non-smokers used the fake cigarettes.
Flavored cigarettes were banned a year ago when the original law was put into act. Now all of the fake smokes have been banned.
However, according to Wiki, that is incorrect; the law only applies to flavored cigarettes, not the candy industry. Other countries have gone so far as to ban them, but the US hasn’t followed suit yet.
For the record: I’m a nonsmoker and hate being around cigarettes. But I’m very very pro e-cigarettes, and I loved candy cigarettes as a child. But I certainly knew they were candy, and they did nothing to increase the attractiveness of cigarettes themselves, which I basically found repulsive.
Get them while you can, people. E-cigs are an awesome invention. Wish they had been around a long time ago, before I did so much damage to my lungs.
People that are against e-cigs don’t want to help create and support ex-smokers.
Stock up.
E-cigs represent disobedience to the state. It isn’t just smoking is bad for you. You’re supposed to want to have nothing to do with it.
It’s like the finger thing and guns. It isn’t just that guns are dangerous. You’re supposed to think a certain way about guns.
In all cases you are expected to act in ways that demonstrate you have absorbed the lesson.
“The rules proposed by the F.D.A. would lay the foundation to protect the public from devices whose risks are largely unknown”, says the New York Times editorial headlined, “Wise Controls for E-Cigarettes”.
This is the essence of liberalism: because we’re wise, we are going to protect you against even unknown risks. Unknown means there may possibly be zero risks, or only trivial risks, nothing needing protection against, but the Statist Experts will establish themselves as evaluators and regulators regardless, soaking up money by taxing.
Also, this is a lie. E-cigs aka Vapes dispense pure nicotine dissolved in water. The “risks” (pharmacologic effects) of nicotine have been known for a very, very, very long time. Cancer is not among them (it is the result of some of the gazillion other ingredients of tobacco smoke….and possibly marihuana smoke).
The Leftist wordsmiths are smooth, though, and must all have gone to law school. They are actually going to protect us against “Devices”, based on a concern about unknown risks, says the NYT in its approving editorial
Funny how incinerating and inhaling marijuana won’t harm your lungs. Because magic.
E sigs replace the somatic and psychological craving for stimuli reward that nicotine induces in a person’s physical conditioning.
Chewing gum or chewing on straw, served similar purposes in the ancient days (of no tech).
It may be proven in the future that the cigarette and tobacco industries have only been allowed to exist by the Left, for the vast amount of war funding they have provided, via involuntary taxes, to the Left’s war on humanity. That time may be nearing its end now that the Left seeks complete dominion and have little uses for protectorates or tax peons.
KLS…
The word is that cannabis is drastically worse — per puff — than tobacco.
The calculus starts at 15 to 20 times as damaging.
After all, it HAS to be deeply inhaled.
This damage is balanced by its (relatively) infrequent use.
No-one chain smokes reefer.
Folks, what we’re dealing with is New Age Puritanism.
Perfectionism, if you will, in the rite of life.
In its twisted way, so too is the rise of New Age Islamic fanaticism.
As humanity climbs Maslov’s pyramid, it comes unglued from its moorings.
Abstraction becomes all.
You’d have to visit Stratos (Star Trek Original Series) to find an elite more disconnected from ground truth.
That linked Boston Globe article about the FDA plan to regulate e-cigarettes doesn’t mention it, but I think one of the reasons is the potential for their use as a drug-delivery system:
To me, that makes it seem FDA regulation is necessary.
I’m sorry Ann but I didn’t need the FDA to regulate my behavior when I was a teen. I had parents.
Bottom line never changes. Business people are bad, children are innocent (none ever smoked until E-cigs, Ann, right?), and FDA regulation is good.
What’s FDA gonna do? Prescribe and proscribe flavors? Good idea, Ann? Maybe they’ll regulate colors of condoms too, make them all black for racial justice.
That’s like saying they need to control our first aid kits, syringes, tourniquets, and guns because criminals can all use them for bad things.
When criminal behavior is the standard by which a government that would be powerless without the consent of the people, has, there’s a problem that’s deeper than regulatory fiat.
Two of the proposed FDA restrictions are
–A ban on the sale of e-cigarettes to minors.
–A ban on selling e-cigarettes in vending machines unless they are in places that never admit young people.
Why in the world would you oppose those, in light of the very real problem re dangerous drug-delivery that the linked article I provided above discusses?
Oppose?
Have we been listening to too much authoritarian propaganda, have we.
Their power comes from individuals and the people. Without our consent, they are not authorized and it becomes impossible for them to enforce any of this.
Rather than asking “why people are opposed”, the question should be flipped. How can the FDA compromise, grovel, and CONVINCE us these are correct things and that they are the correct thugs to enforce it.
Interesting that the new marijuana capitol, Colorado, already bans the sale of e-cigarettes to minors.
Maybe because E-cigarettes packed with marijuana oil are set to boom in Colorado
This isn’t about the degree of e-cig’s unknown “gateway attraction” or any other purported concern. This is about power and control. ‘Regulation’ is often just a form of socially-approved coercion administered by the State. While some regulation is easily defensible and necessary, regulations where no harm comes to others is… “invented nonsense”.
In any socialistic system, all thought, speech and behavior must eventually be classified as either forbidden or mandatory.
This is sort of a side note, but… while I’ve never had any candy labeled “candy cigarettes,” the little white sticks in that photo look an awful lot like the generically-named “candy sticks” my brother and I used to get in cardboard boxes decorated with cartoon characters.
Ann: e-cigs are already banned for minors. Anything can be misused. E-cigs took me from being a two plus pack a day smoker of forty years to using only e-cigs within days of trying them. They’re a damn miracle if you ask me. I will purchase them at twice the price. But a lot of younger smokers that aren’t feeling any health consequences yet won’t be as interested in trying them if the government makes them the same price as real cigarettes.
e-cigs are already banned for minors
Only in some states.
Ann, what are we going to do with you?
This was about E-cigs (nicotine) and you made it about marihuana oil in the under-18.
You want to give FDA more power? Because E-cigs might be used by youths with marihuana oil?
I get it. It is, as always, For The Children.
Ann,
Why don’t we just ban travel to Colorado? Jerry Brown (not my favorite pol) opposed pot legalization because he said it would lead to adverising and enticing the young to use pot. He is right on this. if you can ban e-cigs, shouldné¤t you also be able to ban ski trips to Aspen for those under 21.
Why do you think some states have banned sales to minors? Just to flex their muscles?
We can’t have “some” states doing one thing and another state doing another thing, is that the authoritarian vibe and circle dance you are feeling, Ann?
That’s called an compulsion. Counter logick would be:
We can’t have some people doing one thing and another person doing another thing. That’s against uniformity.
So which is it going to be, Ann, uniformity to authoritarian power or individual freedom? Can’t have both.
Jerry Brown/Calfornia also has a ban on sales of e-cigs to minors.
Until the FDA head responsible and all his minions come before me and bow their head in honest plea, I ain’t going to “consent” to their power mad schemes.
And that includes their supporters, Ann, in the bargain.
Yea, i’m sure independent individuals always did things because everyone else around them were doing it. Talk about social authority over riding personal will.
Ann, you’re not authorized to sell the FDA to me. Call your boss up and send him here.
We can’t have “some” states doing one thing and another state doing another thing, is that the authoritarian vibe and circle dance you are feeling, Ann
You must be opposed to the national drinking age then, too. I’m not. But I don’t think that means I’m caught up in some “circle dance” of authoritarianism.
Meant to say “national minimum drinking age”.
Every company I’ve used says clearly on their site and products not for use by those under 18. The only state restrictions I know of are CA, OR, WA don’t allow the non- tobacco flavors to be sold. I found as I got more comfortable with the transition that non-tobacco flavors appealed to me more. It should be my choice.
Ann: not trying to give you a hard time but why do you seem more worried about these than the real thing, pot and cigs?
Here’s a list of the 33 states that ban the sale of e-cigs to minors. Haven’t read the particulars of the law in each of those states, but looking at just a few the ban is on all e-cigs, not just particular flavors.
And I’m not “more worried about these than the real thing, pot and cigs”. It’s just that banning them for minors seems the wise thing to do.
Ann … if THC is the substance of concern, then it seems to me that is what should be regulated, not e-cigs. That seems like letting out a known, violent criminal in the streets and then banning everyone from having knives and guns so as not to tempt the criminal into committing a crime.
E-cigs could save the lives of many cigarette smokers. My first libertarian stirrings came about because a form of e-cigs was banned by the first Bush administration in the early 90’s as a drug-delivery system. The ban infuriated me because, had it been available at that time, I’m fairly certain it would have saved me from about 10 additional years of smoking before I finally quit. The rationale never made any sense to me since the drug in question, nicotine, was legal and e-cigs are much less harmful to health than cigarettes with its tar and smoke.
reticent, I’m only talking about banning them for minors. Are you against that?
Ann, a couple of years ago, I would’ve said that those regulations sound fairly sensible, so fine. And if that was all it was, I would be okay with it. But it seems as if allowances for sensible regulations, in the hands of an unaccountable bureaucracy, quickly morph into a hydra-head of intrusive regulations that actually harm the health and welfare of the average citizen. And at least as described in the PJ article, the proposed regulations seem much broader than two very limited rules.
Sorry, in other words … I believe it is the first step towards either an outright ban for everyone or a regulatory regime so cost prohibitive that all e-cig vendors will be forced out of the market. And that would cost the lives of many current cigarette smokers who might otherwise have been able to quit with them.
You must be opposed to the national drinking age then, too
Opposed to the national drinking age… as if it’s something one opposes.
The drinking age is only enforced by the people it affects.
Oppose is what someone thinks peasants have to do against their betters.
What I consent to is from my individual will. No matter how you cut it Ann, you want to be part of the crowd but that won’t save you in the war.
The shorter answer is
Gov: Where’s my cut?
How many of you live in states that, like New York, ALWAYS show a warning under EVERY car commercial saying “Professional driver on closed course. Do not attempt”, even when they’re just tooling along a straightaway?
I can’t tell you how that irritates me.
ALL of this is being done AGAINST OUR WILL. It’s a kind of rape, the relentless, endless, forcible intrusions into our private lives.
Damn it, I’m going to take up smoking Cigars. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Apparatchiks.
I seem to recall coke cans, cardboard from a roll of toilet paper and an apple carved with a pocket knife as drug delivery systems overlooked by regulators in my youth.
It’s interesting that Ann brings up the Drinking Age in regards to this topic.
I believe Instapundit had a discussion/series of links a few days past about the Drinking Age.
The thought, and I found a lot of logic to it, is that by making the national drinking age 21, you move the act of drinking by teens from legal to illegal and from safe venues (like mom and dad’s house at dinner, family picnics as well as high school parties for older teens with parental supervision) to unsafe venues, without (responsible) adult supervision. And this means, in the end, more damage is done. Children get into more trouble because they do it on the sly. They don’t learn to respect alcohol in a controlled family setting (like wine in Europe). And they tend to binge drink when they get to college, because there are even fewer responsible adults around.
Now, I’m not sure if all of that is true. But I have a feeling there is something sensible there.
Either way, if drinking is legal, why wait until 21? Why legislate these things?
Fear and control. That’s it. And important decisions should never be made from a position of fear. And that includes fear of not being in control.
Or fear of letting harm come to children. But you would think that after all of these years and the “But it’s for the children…” hogwash, some of us would be more circumspect about swallowing these arguments, whether about alcohol or e-cigs.
My dad was a heavy smoker throughout my childhood. Fortunately he finally kicked the habit about 25 years ago and he is now in his 80s. When I was a kid, I loved those candy cigarettes. I can recall that a neighborhood pal wasn’t allowed to eat them, however, because her mom thought they would encourage her to smoke. I took a couple of puffs on a cigarette once, in college, but other than that have never touched the stuff. I would happily eat a box of candy cigs however, if I could find them.
Notice how liberals want to pass out syringes and condoms for free to any age person, yet demonize the e-cig in the mind of every American.
They want its big money to help fund government. The new industry that employs the parasitically incompetent Americans.
GAWD I HATE PC and the PC-Thought Police.
The cigarette police have succeeded in getting smoking banned from one of its last safe bastions: The well known cabal of sober drunks who help others get a sober life. Good Grief, it’s waaaay toooo cleaned up. GRRRrrrrrrrrrr….)-:
I quit smoking 20-years ago this summer as a “Pre-Nup” request of my then fiancé(now The BIG Boss)along with one other outrageous demand: Stop eating whole Key Lime Pies from the middle out. So, I quit smoking. ((-:
Woops….Forgot to say that the Faux E-Ciggies are also verboten in those sober cabal meetings.
Now, I’m not sure if all of that is true.
It is, for the most part.
Humans have to be conditioned into moderation. Germany doesn’t have as many instances of binge drinking, because alcohol isn’t considered verbotten and it’s not something only for cool adults. When Americans go to Germany on school exchange trips, some of them get plastered and the host families have to clean off the puke via the shower, before the kid can be sent back to America.
The law makes it so that parents cannot control alcohol amongst teens. Since by controlling the supply to a party and overseeing the party, means somebody calls the cops on them and the parents go to jail for supplying alcohol to minors. How people who can shoot up schools, have mass orgy sex with younger girls, can own firearms at 18, are considered “minors” is something best to be ignored.
Contesting and opposing government power directly contests power against power, yang against yang. It’s sourced from the belief that one must use one’s own power against the LAW.
What people have been fooled into thinking is exactly that. When in reality, the power of the federal government and its enforcement branches only come from the consent of the governed. Human power in hierarchies come from the bottom of the pyramid and it pools upwards. The most influence a human has over their surroundings is against the people one rank directly below them and one rank directly above them.
For those that want their kids to be resistant to government or peer pressure, then you have to get the kids while they are young, condition them, and train them to refuse to obey. This requires far more nerve and skill, than opposing or supporting Government Dictats.
NeoConScum:
Is there any other way to eat key lime pies?
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Obedient dogs of the federal authority can’t use their own powers to convince anyone, not even their neighbors or family. Thus they see fit to use federal force to steal power from the people and use it to make people obey.
That sounds legit all right, for weaklings and totalitarians.
My son bought a big box of candy cigarette packs last year on Amazon. Little rebel, I’m proud of him.
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