Cracking Down on ELFBAR While Allowing Legal Cannabis? U.S. Senate Majority Leader Accused of Double

Brian Darling, a former legal counsel and Senate communications director, recently wrote an op-ed for the U.S. media outlet InsideSources titled "Bad Vaping Policy From the FDA." In the article, Darling argues that some lawmakers are trying to continuously expand the power of regulatory agencies, completely ignoring priorities and applying double standards in the process.
Darling points out that the United States is currently facing rising food and consumer goods prices, government debt, housing costs, banking stability, employment, excessive government power, and other major issues. By comparison, he says, all of those issues are more important than the e-cigarette issue.
Darling believes that while so many pressing problems remain unresolved, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is using resources to demand that government agencies investigate an e-cigarette company, simply because Schumer does not like that the company is selling e-cigarettes in his state. Darling calls this bad policy and says the power of government agencies is being distorted.
In the article, Darling says Schumer has reignited the war on e-cigarettes by asking regulators to stop a company from using KOLs on social media platforms to help educate e-cigarette users about its products. He cited a previous New York Post report saying Schumer has made the e-cigarette product "Elf Bar" a target for elimination. Schumer called on the FDA to investigate "a popular Chinese-made e-cigarette that he says violates U.S. advertising laws" by directly targeting children and teenagers through social media.
Darling also points to what he sees as Schumer's double standard: if this war on e-cigarettes is truly about protecting minors, then Schumer would not support legalizing the sale of flavored cannabis products at the federal level. Darling notes that Schumer is a co-sponsor of the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, which is intended to remove marijuana from the controlled substances list.
Darling says he supports removing marijuana from the list, but notes that some states allow the marketing of flavored products designed to appeal to adults, and companies advertising flavored CBD and THC gummies and chocolate products are not unusual. In that context, he argues, the claim that flavored e-cigarettes must be banned to protect minors is not credible.
At the end of the article, Darling stresses that it is bad policy for the FDA to impose more big-government policies on the American people. He says Chuck Schumer and others who support this flawed policy should step down.