The vapocalypse approaches as

September 13, 2019 3 Comments

the current sitting United States President Donald Trump, announced on Wednesday that he is directing his administration to consider all options in addressing the recent rash of health scares from vaping.  Unfortunately the fake news is really winning on this front as the hysteria against vaping has been amped up to 11 due to the health issues cased by illegal THC cartridges, which are by the way, entirely different from nicotine eLiquids which have caused 0 health issues over the past decade. 

Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and acting Food and Drug Administration commissioner Ned Sharpless met with the president at the White House to discuss potential restrictions they will try to impose in the near future.  One of those restrictions is a nationwide ban on flavored eLiquid products, because it makes sense to keep flavored tobacco and alcohol products out there, and prohibition is easier than informing the masses in this day and age. Trump confirmed this, during an oval office meeting at the White House with Azar and Sharpless, however no relevant legislative details have been released yet.

“The Trump Administration is making it clear that we intend to clear the market of flavored e-cigarettes to reverse the deeply concerning epidemic of youth e-cigarette use that is impacting children, families, schools and communities,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement, adding; “We will not stand idly by as these products become an on-ramp to combustible cigarettes or nicotine addiction for a generation of youth.”

Like the recent flavored e-cigarette ban in Michigan, any adverse action taken against flavors will come in the form of either executive action or emergency policy making from the Department of Health and Human Services and/or the FDA.

All of this despite nearly all of the cases of severe respiratory illness have been linked to contaminated THC products purchased through legal and illicit means. There are over 400 cases in over 30 states with five confirmed deaths, all linked to illegal THC products, not flavored nicotine eLiquid products.

Gregory Conley, the president of the American Vaping Association advocacy organization and one of the only sane people on television being interviewed about this whole scenario made these statements on CNN earlier yesterday:  “We are deeply disappointed in the President’s decision to take direction from anti-vaping activists like Mike Bloomberg by attempting to ban the sale of nearly every vaping product on the market. A ban will remove life-changing options from the market that have been used by several million American adults to quit smoking.

In his ongoing efforts to continue to educate the public and advocate the beneficial health impact vaping has for those who do currently smoke he continued; “In the history of the United States, prohibition has never worked. It didn’t work with alcohol. It hasn’t worked with marijuana. It won’t work with e-cigarettes. The President should meet with just one of the millions of American voters who have used flavors to quit smoking before moving forward on this draconian approach to regulation and public policy. Destroying thousands of small businesses and sending ex-smokers back to smoking will do nothing to stop drug dealers from selling contaminated THC cartridges. A flavor ban will only lead to the creation of yet another multibillion-dollar black market that will operate with zero safety controls.”

We here at Northland are just as shook up about this whole issue as probably all of you are out there around the country who are still wondering exactly what's going to happen.  For now we'll have to wait and see how this whole event unfolds, and optimistically we'll see some greater light shed on the topic, the deflation of the conflation of vaping illegal and legal products, and a more informed public will emerge from this whole debacle better off knowing that vaping isn't the bad guy in this story. 

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