The political machinations of Oregon legislators are enough to drive you to smoke.
Literally. If these people get their way, they might end up dong just that – even promoting smoking among teenagers.
That’s because some legislators are, apparently, now increasigly intent on gaining control over the vaping industry, treating vaping just like smoking, with ridiculous taxes and widespread bans on use.
An assortment of house bills could relegate cigarettes and nicotine-containing products to prescription-only.
All flavors would be banned except tobacco and menthol.
Vaping would be banned at the office. It would be banned everywhere smoking is banned.
The bottom line is that representatives like Phil Barnhart, who represents the area southwest of Sweet Home, would just as soon get rid of them entirely.
We wonder if they realize what they’re doing here. Have they actually walked the streets? Do they know anyone who has actually quit smoking tobacco to opt for healthier (and cheaper) vaping?
We do. We know people who have smoked for decades, who had nasty coughs and many of the other characteristics that tend to accompany habitual smokers, who have done a 180 – the cough is gone and so is the aura. Unlike smoking, vaping is barely noticeable and usually inoffensive.
Barnhart and his colleagues are clearly unimpressed. Rather Barnhart wrote last year that his father died from smoking and that he was appalled to see vapers using their e-cigarettes at an airport with impunity.
He is one of several legislators sponsoring a stack of bills to limit the use of e-cigarettes. Only one makes any sense, one that would ban the sale to minors. Of course, the industry is already doing it, and there isn’t even an actual law prohibiting the use of e-cigarettes by minors.
Sort of reminds us of the general smoking ban when nearly all businesses were already non-smoking facilities. The government was left behind by the actions of a free people. But late to the game, it had to do something. It’s government, after all. It banned the use of smokes everywhere else, including the tiny handful of restaurants that catered to all-night smoking coffee drinkers. (Let’s not forget The Spring – what nonsmoker went there on purpose?)
Our lawmakers won’t be left behind this time. They’re going to get right on this 7-year-old wave and take care of business with a giant hammer.
Never mind that teenage smoking was at its lowest point ever in 2013 (and we wouldn’t be surprised to see that it decreased further in 2014 with the rapid expansion of vaping) Coincidentally, teenage vaping was increasing and continues to increase.
Let’s see, which would be preferable? Tar-laden tobacco smoke billowing down teen-age throats or something a lot less lethal that still isn’t quite as pure as the wind in the willows?
It’s clear to us which is preferable if teens are going to try something, and they always will try something. It might as well be something rather dramatically safer than the alternative. Take away vaping, and they’ll go back to smoking, or worse.
The argument that vaping is a gateway to smoking is specious at best. Never mind that flavors are a clear enticement away from tobacco cigarettes and their 40 to 80 carcinogens and hundreds of chemicals and toxins. These legislators simply cannot abide a “vice” being pleasurable. And to make sure the plebians out there aren’t somehow endangering themselves, they’re going to try to slam the door on this.
E-cigarettes haven’t been well-studied – especially the effects over the long term of inhaling propylene glycol for the user (it dissipates quickly for second-hand bystanders); but we can make some rather educated guesses about them.
We know cigarettes, and e-cigarettes are not cigarettes. They’re exponentially safer, and they’re helping people quit smoking in spite of attempts to scare vapers and the public. A recent study finding that the carcinogen formaldehyde can be produced by e-cigarettes is a prime example.
News agencies and public officials latched onto it, and they cling to it even after the claim was thoroughly debunked. To create the formaldehyde, e-cigarettes must be used in a way no vaper would find pleasant. Why would users opt for a decidedly negative experience that leads to no good end? Answer: They won’t.
Rather, e-cigarettes represent a viable way for smokers to reduce or, we hope, completely eliminate the harm in their habit.
But these things are not important to authoritarian prohibitionists like Barnhart and some of his colleagues.
The road they envision will take us right back to where we were: harmful, dangerous tobacco. People smoke – or vape – for a reason, and whether these politicians like it or not, that’s not going to change any more than Americans’ taste for alcohol failed to disappear during Prohibition.
Government officials need to stay out of this. We have a state insurance system that’s been a disaster. We have ongoing challenges with taxation, quality of education, forestry issues, health care – need we go on?
We don’t know the particulars of Barnhart’s father’s experience, but we think Barnhart should consider for just a few seconds whether his father might have lived much longer if he had had this technology available.
In the spirit of saving lives, the answer here is to let a relatively good thing alone.
Barnhart and his colleagues should abandon this assault against recovering smokers.