Why is Government Trying to Make a Proven Smoking-Cessation Device Illegal?

The busybodies of the government are determined to destroy vaping, which has helped millions and millions of people quit smoking.

In case you're wondering: It's the smoke that makes smoking dangerous, not the nicotine. Nicotine is the addictive agent, but it's the smoke that's the poison. The tar contains the carcinogens; nicotine itself isn't a carcinogen.

Health studies have found that vaping is at least 95% less harmful than smoking, and its harms are mostly stuff about increasing blood pressure and vasoconstriction, stuff that coffee does too. A harm, yes, and something you'd be better off without -- but it's not cancer.

For me, personally, I quit cold turkey, but started vaping when I complained about a loss of mental focus to a doctor. The doctor said, "Well, as a doctor, I can't recommend vaping exactly, but you might try it."

I think his calculation was, "Better you get your nicotine fix via the at-least-95%-less-harmful vape than that you start building a case in your brain for why you should start smoking cigarettes again."

Was he right? Well, I didn't start smoking again. (Which I'd done before after quitting.) And I've gone from 1.8% nicotine by volume, to 1.2%, to 0.6%, to mixing 0.6% with 0.3% for a net of about 0.45%. I hope to get down to 0.3% next month, and then, after a few months of that, maybe mixing 0.3% with 0.0% for a net of 0.15%.

So bit by bit, I'm actually going off the least harmful part of the cigarette too.

Once I get down to 0.3% or 0.15%, I'll be at such a low level that I could probably just stop altogether without even trying.

Or, I could vape occasionally when I wanted a little boost -- and at such a low dosage, with nicotine itself not being a particularly harmful substance (not good for you, but not really any kind of public health threat), what risk would I really be running if I did so?

I know several commenters here have much the same story. I know at least one is vaping currently at 0.0% nicotine -- that is, no nicotine at all, just doing the vape to mimic the physical part of the addictive behavior. (Like a smoker will try puffing on an unlit cigarette to mimic smoking without smoking.)

But for some reason, crazed Progressive Puritans really really want me to go back to smoking. Maybe so that I can start putting tax money into their government again, funding their sex education classes, and also dying earlier so I can help shore up Obamacare's collapsing financing by simply no longer existing.

Instapundit's post urges Republicans to get on this issue:

Republicans have a chance to to combine sound science and good politics by protecting the 10 million American vapers, a demographic that’s projected to double in the next decade. “These contemptuous nanny-state jerks want to take away the products that are saving their lives,” says Grover Norquist, the GOP strategist. “Believe me, this is a vote-moving issue.”

Indeed it is -- Ron Johnson needed more votes in 2016, and was projected to be a likely loser. But he went around to all the vape stores in Wisconsin and promised them he'd protect them against FDA crackdowns -- and he managed an unexpected win, and is still regarded favorably by most vapers even if they're Democrats.

The documentary below is available on Amazon and maybe Netflix. It talks a lot about how a Baptist/Bootlegger alliance teamed up to prohibit alcohol -- the Baptists wanted alcohol illegal because they thought it was an immoral drink that led to greater vices, and Bootleggers wanted it illegal because Bootleggers only make money if liquor is illegal.

It notes a similar Baptist/Bootlegger alliance going on with the effort towards a new Prohibition on vaping. The Progressive Puritans want it illegal because it "looks like smoking" and because Progressives feel that any vice they don't partake in must be Unholy and therefore be made Illegal, and meanwhile major drug companies which make approved smoking-cessation drugs don't like vaping intruding on their turf.

And of course the government has a vested interest in keeping smokers hooked and dying early, because they pay enormous taxes on cigarettes and exit the health care system earlier than others.

posted by Ace at 07:24 PM

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