What Will the Flavored E-cig Ban Accomplish?
ALEX ZEIG27 comments
At this point, we’ve all heard about the latest reports that are connecting vaping to a dangerous lung disease. At VaporDNA, we went into detail regarding some of the reasons why those concerns may be blown out of proportion. This time around, we’re going to focus on the proposed ban of flavored e-juices from the Trump administration. While many experts are discussing how best to combat the illness that’s not yet fully understood, which is why this ban might be both rushed and poorly informed.
But the targeting of flavored e-juices specifically is puzzling, to say the least. While there are some things we still need to figure out regarding this unknown illness, just about none of the available research points toward flavored e-juice as the culprit. So, before you go tossing your favorite dessert vape in the garbage, let’s go over some reasons why banning these flavored e-juices won’t make much sense.
No effect on THC illness
The proposed ban is only going to affect nicotine concentrates even though nearly all the people that have gotten sick were vaping THC cartridges, most of which were unflavored. Some people could even be allergic to THC itself, which would cause the lung problems we’ve seen in the last month. Considering the much larger black market of THC products than nicotine, the starting cannabis product is significantly more likely to go unchecked for mold or other harmful byproducts of the THC.
Forcing Vapers to Black Market Sellers
Many people following the story believe the victims of this illness got their vape product from a black market seller where their products and processes are completely unregulated. When you buy from the black market, there’s no oversight around the quality or safety of the starting product, the chemicals used to extract nicotine, or the cutting agents the extractor used to make their product ready to vape. All these unknown factors do one thing: increase risk, which is the exact opposite of what government regulation is supposed to do.
Unfortunately, the flavored e-cig ban would only force more people into a market that’s inherently more risky than a typical retail storefront. This is just one way that the flavored e-juice ban would actually put more people in harm’s way and not fewer.
May force current vapers go back to smoking
While the black market represents a level of risk with which many people are uncomfortable, smoking cigarettes represents a certain risk with which entirely too many are comfortable. While cigarettes are old and familiar to lawmakers and consumers alike, we know absolutely that cigarettes can give consumers deadly diseases. This ban would almost certainly result in an increase of Americans smoking cigarettes, a trend that the federal government itself has tried to work against until now.
It’s widely accepted that vaping can be an effective way to help people quit smoking cigarettes, and this ban is set up to undo that and push people back toward older, nastier habits. The last thing people want out of this is to get people back to smoking and doing serious damage to their lungs and overall health.
No impact on teen vaping problem
One of the first reasons the Trump administration sited for this ban was to protect underage Americans from getting sick due to the vaping habit they’re not allowed to have yet. In reality, because any trustworthy vape shop is going to check the ID of any customer entering their store, this ban will not keep kids away from vaping. Their black market channels are unaffected by a government ban, so it won’t be protecting minors in any meaningful capacity.
While there is more than a few good reasons to keep kids away from consuming any nicotine products until they’re of age, this is simply not an effective way to promote that concept.
A blow to American small businesses
Like it or not, vaping has become big business in a short amount of time. There are more than 20,000 vape shops all across the United States, and this ban on e-juices will make those small businesses less appealing to customers and less profitable for the business.
Hassan Sobh, the owner of a prominent Miami vape shop that was recently featured in a Vice article about Trump’s flavored e-cig ban, says “80 percent of my sales are vape products. A lot of the tourists who come by don't have these flavors where they live, so they stock up." So, once again, this ban is delivering a serious blow to small businesses with insufficient evidence that their flavored products are even harmful in the first place.
And, just for a sense of scale, the vape industry currently employees nearly 90,000 people across the US. This isn’t just a handful of businesses in an insignificant industry. Vaping is now a major player in the US economy, and this ban threatens its growth in a way that could put a lot of people out of a job and disrupt the money moving through what is currently a healthy American economy.
Misguided, misinformed, we can do better
While it may not be malicious, this ban has the potential for big negative impacts on businesses and human beings alike. There is a reasonable way to make sure the vape industry produces safe products for customers to consume, but this is simply not it. If we’re going to really figure out what’s going on with the few people that have been affected by this lung illness, then we need to do so in a way that helps people and equips them with facts, not with hyperbole and knee jerk reactions.
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Comments (27)
Big tobacco wants to shut down vaping because its a threat to their companies, so they strong arm government appointed officials that the pay off every year to try and ban vaping. Its not flavors that get teens to vape its parents not parenting.
I think for every commercial or scare tactics they use they should have to post how many people die every day from smoking. I was a smoker for years and quit for 15 yrs and started smoking at work due to stress dumb I know. Well my son has asthma and I was never going to smoke around him so I started vaping and knew it was all natural and zero chance of harm to him. I knew big tobacco was going to pressure them to shut it down and surprise it’s doing it. I knew the Great Orange Ape was going to bend over to the big tobacco companies who I’m sure made “donations” to one of his failing businesses but today Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed a bill to BAN vaping! The idea they can ban vaping but my POS Ex husband is smoking around my sons and his second hand smoke gave my son asthma is infuriating! When we got grouped in with the no smoking with in 10ft of a doorway was bad enough but to be not allowed to vape a pleasant cinnamon scent vapor with zero second hand danger and still be forced to walk through clouds of smoke that smell horrible and are harmful is ridiculous. This is proving how bought and paid for the system really is and they don’t care about are health just their bottom line.
Let’s not bring Trump bashing into this. The truth is he’s being pushed by the left for this ban. That’s why statewide bans already put into place in many liberal states. California, New York, Michigan, Massachusetts, Rhode Island… all leftists run states.
And it is true the FDA is finally beginning to notice the role the black market THC cartridges played in this fiasco.
Remember when it comes to destroying small businesses, it’s the left, not the right that’s just so damn good at it.
This was so well written. I also agree with the comment about offering tobacco flavors to turn people on to them. Smoking = tax revenue & major profits. The growing popularity of vaping must be taking too much of that away. Bottom line. You can’t even compare the death tolls & impacts on health that smoking has versus vaping. I used to be a chain smoker but now I have been vaping for 7 years. My health has improved dramatically. Teens will always find a way to get their hands on forbidden stuff. It just happens to be the time period we are in. All this is going to do is drive people to either go back to cigarettes, obtain “illegal” products, move, and/or dramatically increase the profits of the black market (therefore increasing health risks). Absolute nonsense, greed, & evil. I’m moving out of this state soon anyway, but I fear this is going federal. We as a community have to keep fighting back. Even if I didn’t vape, I would feel the same way. One last thing: today, I was walking from my car to a store taking a puff of my vape (out in the open mind you) and I got death stares. The media is having a field day with this :(
The Lugenpresse is going to Lugenpresse.
So siprise. I got an advertisement in my mailbox from Juul. I have never ordered a juul but somehow big tobacco got my address. So they are pushing their mint and virginia tobacco flavors out on vape community users. Not cool. Definitely a trojan horse behind the vape ban.
There was a massive amount of black market juices seized!! They have finally been acknowledging where the source is coming from. Hopefully getting these products seized and off the street will take the pressure off of us legit folks. Fingers crossed!
This flavor ban has nothing to do with the so called “underage vaping” epidemic, and everything to do with “MONEY”. Our state governments are doing what they do best and overspending our money and counting on things like the tobacco master settlement to provide. Vaping has been around for over a decade and just now people are getting sick, i doubt it. One thing that I dont hear many people talk about is the amount of pressure our youth is put under day in and day out by our education system. We are not allowing our kids to be kids. They turn to vaping not for the “buzz”. But because they are stressed the hell out. Vaping is easier to conceal than cigarettes, but its still safer. Theyre going to do one or the other it doesnt matter. Raising the legal smoking age to 21 would help more than banning flavors. What sense does it make to take away a product that is 95% safer than smoking when they will just switch to the cigarettes. Are you honestly going to say its not ok to vape a safer product that has supposedly hurt roughly 500 people in over ten years, but its ok to smoke a product that has killed hundreds of thousands of people??? Money, thats the root of this ban. Our crooked government wants a cut and vaping is taking it away. SMDH… Stupidity at its finest!
When I said Nic salts and discreet devices could be brought back later on, I meant to add that if they would be brought back, it would have to be done with regulations in place so that kids would never, ever be able to get a hold of them again- or else we’d be right back where we are right now. And for me, right where we are now feels like I’m in a nightmare- except I am never able to wake up from it!
People aren’t understanding what I’m saying here. There are separate issues going on. First, legal vaping products are making anyone sick- it’s black market products, obviously. I have no suggestions how to fix that—that’s the million dollar question. It has nothing to do with vaping, except it does. Because of the unscrupulous media, people who are uneducated about vaping believe that legal vaping products are causing the problems, and it’s drawn negative attention to vaping.
And, the other issue is the “youth vaping epidemic”. There is no doubt kids & teens are vaping like crazy, and the vaping community will not have peace until that issue is solved— there is absolutely no way around it. We all need the kids to stop vaping. In order to get them to stop, we need to realize why they like vaping nicotine products to begin with- and in my opinion, it has nothing to do with flavors, and the youth vaping would have happened even without flavors. The kids like the nic salts because of the buzz, and the JUUL & devices like it because they’re discreet. We never had kids vaping like they are now before these things came along. And, if the kids don’t stop vaping— we won’t be able to vape, either. And I think if we get rid of nic salts, and JUULS & devices like them- the kids won’t care so much about vaping nicotine anymore, and the number of youth vaping will go down so that vaping isn’t eliminated all together. Like I said,I love nic-salt, & use it every day. I also have & use discreet devices. But, I’d gladly give them up to save vaping. It’s a no- brainer. That’s not to say they couldn’t be brought back after this whole mess is overwith, but for now I think eliminating those things could be the only way to get them to stop & help save vaping. The kids are breaking the law, and shouldn’t be vaping, and nothing should be “gotten rid of” but, the situation is what it is- and it’s not good.
Honestly, I don’t think public safety is really the issue at all. The REAL issue is that so many people have quit smoking that the states are losing money from the tobacco master settlement agreement- the state governments rely on and need people to smoke because they rely on and need that money. They are using the “youth vaping epidemic” and illnesses & deaths from the black market to their full advantage to eliminate vaping. The truth needs to get out- it’s government corruption at it’s absolute worst. It’s disgraceful.