Clampdown on vaping could send users back toward cigarettes – Washington Post
“This could take us from potentially the single biggest improvement in public health in the United States toward a public health disaster in which cigarettes continue to be the dominant nicotine product,” said Jonathan Foulds, an addiction researcher and tobacco specialist at Penn State University.
Jonathan Foulds, Penn State University in the Washington Post
We have been saying this for a long time. The best way to beat a nicotine addiction is with the power of flavoring. Adults vape flavors to quit tobacco, kids vape nicotine because they think it is cool.
US government failures to keep black market THC carts, and illicit street drugs off the street is the real problem. Blaming the thousands of vape shop owners who have been front line soldiers in the battle for harm reduction and smoking cessation for their policy failure is simple CYA, and a great example of the fallacy of composition and false equivalence.
Federal investigators say that nearly 80 percent of people who have come down with the vaping illness reported using products containing THC, the high-inducing chemical found in marijuana. They have not traced the problem to any single product or ingredient. But investigators are increasingly focused on thickeners and additives found in illegal THC cartridges sold on the black market.
Clampdown on Vaping, Washington Post
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On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration specifically warned the public not to vape THC or purchase any vaping products off the street.
THC vapes are separate from the legal, nicotine-filled e-cigarettes being targeted by President Donald Trump and politicians across the country.
Democratic governors in New York, Michigan, Washington, Rhode Island and Oregon have followed the president’s plan to ban flavored e-cigarettes nationally with their own state-level flavor restrictions. Massachusetts’ Republican governor has gone even further, placing a four-month moratorium on sales of vaping products of any kind.
“The problem here is we have convinced adult America that vaping is as dangerous as smoking — and nothing could be further from the truth,” said Kenneth Warner, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan’s school of public health.
