There have been discussions at the Heartland Institute by the State Government Relations Manager, Lindsey Stroud, on the ridiculousness of increasing the legal age for vaping products purchase to 21, while leaving the minimum legal age for the purchase tobacco cigarettes at 18.
In every state today, there is a rise in bills aimed at prohibiting, taxing or regulating e-cigarettes. Lindsey Stroud pointed out in an article on the Heartland’s Institute Website, that in Nebraska, Iowa, and Connecticut have plans aimed at increasing the legal age of e-cigarette purchase while neglecting the rather combustible tobacco cigarettes. This is without regard to studies indicating that vaping products are safer compared to tobacco.
According to Stroud “Most public health groups have found e-cigarettes to be significantly less harmful when compared to the traditional tobacco cigarettes, despite being unable to advertise reduced harms. This includes the Royal College of Physicians; Public Health England; Medicine; and Engineering, National Academies of Sciences, and the American Cancer Society,”.
She also added that “Center for Tobacco Products director at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Mitch Zeller, has pointed out that those who switch from combustible cigarettes to e-cigarettes “are bound to be healthier.”
Obsessing about teen vaping
According to Stroud, these bills are set as a response to the recent claims made about teen vaping. “These proposed bills all around different parts of the country is a way of responding to the one-year data of youth vaping.”
“While the “2018 Monitoring the Future Survey” and the “2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey” data are not clear enough, they shouldn’t serve as a basis for public policy decisions even as data indicate youth vaping increased from 2017 to 2018. According to another study, smoking rates are dropping 3 times faster even as FDA alleges an increase in the rate of teen vaping.
There is a correlation between an increase in vaping and a decrease in smoking
Last December, a research led by public health experts; Australian Ron Borland, Ken Warner, and David Levy, all professors, published the journal titled Examining the relationship of smoking initiation and vaping among US youth and young adults: a reality check, in the journal Tobacco Control. The research focused on determining trends in smoking behavior using available public data on vaping, and smoking among youths and young adults.
According to the study abstract; “Beginning from 2014, there has been a significant increase in the prevalence of youth vaping. Time trend analyses have revealed a drop in past 30-day smoking prevalence which has multiplied 2 to 4 times after 2014. There was also a rapid decrease in the indicators of more established smoking rates with increased prevalence of vaping”.