Banning e-cigs is asinine and ineffective

SLUG: vape

DOP: 10/7/19

HED: Don’t ban vapes

SUB-HED: Banning e-cigs is asinine and ineffective

PQ: As callous as it sounds, only 12 people have died from these lung issues that have supposedly been caused by vape use; conversely, cigarettes kill roughly 480,000 Americans every year according to the CDC.

BYLINE: Ezra Gray

BYTITLE: Contributing Writer

PHOTO: https://www.flickr.com/photos/vaping360/16161594800/

PHOTO CRED: Flickr

CUTLINEs: Banning vapes and e-cigarettes won’t solve smoking-related problems.

Over the last month or so, a sudden string of vaping-related illnesses struck several states in the U.S. Roughly 400 people becoming ill with pulmonary disease and lung inflammation. 12 deaths have even occurred, although the CDC has not confirmed that e-cigarette or THC vape use is the direct cause of the illnesses or deaths. 

Because of these sudden string of sicknesses, the Trump Administration and the FDA have come out in full force against vapes, with the president stating that the FDA would be putting out “some very strong new recommendations” within the next few weeks, as well as a potential ban on flavored e-cigarette products.

Personally, I think that this potential “vape ban” is not only idiotic but will ultimately accomplish nothing. The whole purpose of e-cigarettes is to give those who use nicotine products a healthier alternative to cigarettes and dip. Putting a load of restrictions of e-cigarettes, or even outright banning them, is only going to drive those people back to using cigarettes, which are way more harmful to you than vapes. 

As callous as it sounds, only 12 people have died from these lung issues that have supposedly been caused by vape use; conversely, cigarettes kill roughly 480,000 Americans every year according to the CDC. Lung cancer is one of the biggest killers in the whole of the United States, but no one is clamoring to ban cigarettes. Instead, the media and the Trump Administration have whipped people into a frenzy over lung diseases that haven’t even been confirmed to have been caused by e-cigarette use.

Even worse is the fact that e-cigarettes are most likely not the cause of the deaths, but black market THC vapes. According to some medical experts, the culprit might be an acetate called Vitamin E, which is found in illegal THC and CBD vaporizers. These are products that are already illegal, but some people have found a way to purchase them via a black market and subsequently become ill or even die. 

Do you understand what this means? Not only does the FDA and the CDC not conclusively know that e-cigarettes are the cause of these lung illnesses, but many believe that what’s causing the deaths is a product that isn’t an e-cigarette and is already illegal. If that’s the case, then banning e-cigarettes wouldn’t stop these deaths at all. If anything, a ban would only drive vape users to either go back to using cigarettes, which are far worse for your lungs, or force them to buy less-safe vape products from the black market.

Why is it in this country that we’re content with the government banning and restricting what we can and cannot put into our bodies so long as it suits them? Young people can drink and smoke to their heart’s content, despite the fact that alcohol and cigarettes kill hundreds of thousands of people a year. 

Teenagers fresh out of grade school can go hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, die in a war for their country and be taxed by their government, but God forbid they choose to use e-cigarettes. Prohibition on alcohol didn’t work, the War on Drugs hasn’t worked, and this ridiculous ban sure as hell won’t either. If the government truly wants to keep Americans healthier, then forcing them to buy their products off the black market is not the way to do it.