Don’t Let Ideology Blind You

Anti-smoking zealots and tobacco prohibitionists should celebrate the new vaping business as a public health miracle that can help millions of Americans put down their cancer sticks.

Instead, they have launched a full-scale attack on the industry, primarily under the guise that e-cigarettes may entice children to eventually pick up the smoking habit.

However, a study released last week by the University of Michigan indicates that "most teenagers are not vaping nicotine, but rather using sweet fruit flavors like strawberry, chocolate cake, and bubblegum," according to the Associated Press. The study found that only about 13% to 20% of teens reported that they vaped nicotine.

"The boom in youth vaping coincides with a continued decline in teenage smoking," the Associated Press notes. "Vaping is now more common than smoking."

One would think that anti-smoking activists would applaud such a trend. Instead, they have pressured federal regulators to impose measures that could weaken the e-cigarette market, driving thousands of small vaping operations out of business while limiting large tobacco companies.

Michael Siegel, a professor of public health at Boston University, believes these interest groups are woefully misguided.

"Many anti-smoking groups oppose these products because they are blinded by ideology," he wrote in The New York Times. "They find it difficult, if not impossible, to endorse a behavior that looks like smoking, even if it literally saves lives." Rather than disparaging the products, Mr. Siegel insists that "the FDA should embrace e-cigarettes as a legitimate harm reduction alternative for millions of smokers who simply have not succeeded in quitting using available methods."

Instead, the FDA's crackdown on e-cigarettes—which is being challenged in court—will make it harder for long-term smokers to quit their nicotine addiction at the cost of their lives.

It also ignores research from Public Health England, which concluded last year that vaping is 95% safer than smoking traditional cigarettes and found no evidence that e-cigarette use entices children or non-smokers to take up the habit.

"What I understand is that those who switch to vaping eliminate almost all the risks that smoking poses to their health," said Peter Hajek, a professor in London reported by the UK government.

The University of Michigan study will only further weaken the argument for a public sector effort to suppress vaping.