If Illnesses Continue, What’s Next?

President Trump’s sudden, jaw-dropping announcement of a complete ban on all flavored Vaping products puts all vape products – including THC and CBD extracts – in serious jeopardy.

By using the recent rash of lung illnesses as an excuse to ban flavored vape products, the federal government – FDA, CDC, the President – have shown that they are not above misleading the public in order to facilitate their aims.

Illicit Cartridges

It is becoming evident that most – if not all – of the deaths and illnesses are caused by additives (vitamin E acetate) in THC vape cartridges sold on the streets. There has not been one single, legal vape product found to be causing these serious health issues.

This appears to be an issue involving tainted drugs – not JUUL pods bought from the convenience store.

Nonetheless, The FDA – with the help of the President, the CDC and the media – have exploited this outbreak to attack their favorite target: e-cigarettes. They have leveraged, fear and misinformation to enact a new prohibition.

In fact, the cynical, disingenuous way this ban was enacted sets a dangerous precedent that threatens all Vaping Products and actually puts more people at risk.

Public Health in No Less Danger

Firstly, by implicating legal vaping products as the cause of the recent outbreak, they have done absolutely nothing to protect the public from the real dangers of illicit vaping cartridges that are cited in the vast majority of cases.

Secondly, this ban will effectually make vaping products unavailable to ex-smokers – sending them back to cigarettes.

Thirdly, this shell game of falsely blaming e-cigs has set a dangerous precedent and calls the integrity of the FDA into question.

Finally, since the federal government is not addressing the root cause, what will happen if the illnesses continue? The logical next step would be to ban vaping of all types.

To this point, the extraordinary warning issued recently by the CDC not-so-subtly incriminates every method of vaping and every substance used – including nicotine, THC and CBD.

Reading this warning will give a fairly clear idea of what a tenuous existence vaping has.

Media Are Complicit

Fueling all of this is massive amounts of shoddy, reckless reporting by the media.

Rather than practicing thorough, investigative journalism and explaining why people are getting sick and dying, the media is more than happy to spread fear of vaping in general.

With a very few exceptions, the average news story talks about vaping and the teen nicotine epidemic. The vague phrase “Linked to e-cigarettes” is apparently mandatory. This has left the vast majority of the public to conclude that all vaping is potentially deadly.

Easy Win for FDA

The FDA’s negligence in handling the opioid epidemic not only caused thousands of deaths and millions of ruined lives – but also gave the agency a reputation as being ineffectual and in the pocket of Big Pharma.

Vaping has been a bugaboo that the FDA has had difficulty dealing with. The relative safety of vaping over cigarettes has been grudgingly been acknowledged.

“We saw them (e-cigarettes) as a less harmful alternative to cancer-causing tobacco for addicted adult smokers.” – Scott Gottlieb, Former FDA Head

But instead of coming up with thoughtful, creative, effective solutions to the teen nicotine problem (i.e. heavy fines for retailers), the agency has elected to score a quick political “win” over vaping. Slam dunk.

Sadly, in the process, thousands of businesses were just obliterated

The fragmented vaping industry has almost zero clout compared to tobacco and the pharmaceutical industries.

So this may be a short-term image boost for the FDA, but it bolsters arguments that they are overly influenced by these particular lobbies.

The general public loses vaping but can still buy menthol-flavored cigarettes and Chantix.

Conclusion

Most ominous of all is the use of knee-jerk prohibition. Banning is a blunt force approach with many unforeseen consequences.

Prohibition is a failed concept. It is what drove most (if not all) of the victims to buy illegal cartridges in the first place.

If the FDA seizes on tragic, criminal poisonings to run an end-around and ban e-cigarettes, what won’t it do?

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