Banning flavors in vape will directly negatively impact millions of lives

December 13, 2019 26 Comments

and what is it exactly elected and public officials have going for them to keep conventional combustible smokes around?  We're almost at the end of this decade and these people still act like they want obsolete and deadly cigarettes around. 

Amid an unprecedented wave of hysteria about illegal vape cartridges with illegal THC products and other tainted materials in them caused single number number digits in a handful of states the whole issue was immediately conflated with regular eLiquids, and the administration seemed poised to announce a ban on flavors in all nicotine vaping products in a drastic overreaction.

Despite the American Medical Association and other health organizations urged the White House to finalize the ban, the sitting administration dissented and chose to delay the outright ban. Unfortunately the American Medical Association continues to call for a complete ban on all e-cigarette products through the guise of a flavor ban, even though we have mountains of evidence this is all nonsense. 

Flavor bans continue to exist as terrible ideas both in concept and in practice but a complete prohibition would be even worse. A flavor ban will do nothing but create black markets for people who want these products to seek out, and prohibition would be that problem multiplied by several factorials. 

Recent surveys motivating these policies also indicate that younger vapers would most likely substitute to whatever flavors remain legal anyways, if not just go right to cigarettes.  After all that seems to be what these people want, terrible alternatives regardless of public health impacts. 

Juul first introduced its e-cigarettes to the market in 2016, and it had a cadre of fruity flavors that dominated their sales figures, but even after Juul voluntarily removed most of its flavors from convenience stores in 2018, youth e-cigarette use continued to increase.  Indicating flavor has once again, nothing to do with any of this. 

Cigarette use among both teens and adults is now at its lowest rate in American history, and that is entirely because of vaping competing with conventional cigarettes. The New England Journal of Medicine published a randomized-controlled trial showing that e-cigarettes are almost twice as effective at helping smokers quit cigarettes as FDA-approved cessation products; like gums, patches, lozenges and even cigalike devices.

Public Health England also concluded that vaping is about 95 percent safer than conventional cigarettes. The evidence is clear and the conclusion is obvious; Public health officials should support vaping to obsolete conventional cigarettes.

Yet the American Medical Association continues to support policies that would interfere with these public health promises. A flavor ban would slightly discourage vaping among youth, but it would also discourage vaping among adult smokers. Both age groups would likely increase their conventional smoking rates.

The BMJ, a prestigious medical publication formerly known as The British Medical Journal, published a study estimating the consequences of a flavor ban: a reduction in adult vaping by 11 percent, while increasing adult smoking by 8 percent, which if you do the math creates about 1.6 million additional adult smokers.

That would be a tragedy for public health, but if conventional cigarette smokers completely switched to e-cigarettes, about 6.6 million fewer people would die from smoking, according to another study in the BMJ. That’s because nicotine consumption by itself doesn’t cause smoking-related illnesses, because vaping isn't smoking! There's no combustion, so no smoke. 

Worse yet, the American Medical Association acknowledges the disproportionate dangers of conventional cigarettes compared to e-cigarettes in its own medical journal, still they want to go even further with full e-cigarette prohibition. Either these medical leaders are ignoring a larger health crisis that such a prohibition might cause, or they are ignorant of the realities they are interfering with. 

The recent cases of vaping-related illnesses, or EVALIs, currently have nothing to do with legal nicotine products. Although some health officials have incorrectly confused the lung illnesses with normal vaping, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have made it clear that black-market vitamin-E acetate adulteration in marijuana-derived liquids is overly responsible for the recent vaping-related lung injuries.

What do you think about these bans? Has prohibition ever worked for anything in the history of ever?  Why won't all of these public institutions get on board for the simple consensus that is improved public health?  Can the be any other answers besides corruption and private interests making money?

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