On September 11, 2019, then-President Donald Trump announced that due to vaping-related lung injuries, his administration would be banning flavored nicotine vaping products.
The ban was announced despite the fact that it had already been proven that these lung injuries were being caused by black market marijuana vape products that contained vitamin E acetate. This ban was announced despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary of their stated reasoning.
Trump went on to ban flavors in “pod systems” in early 2020. By then, the damage that was done extended far beyond those products. Even prior to the outbreak, adult smokers and ex-smokers had been convinced vaping was more harmful than cigarettes, despite scientists repeatedly showing that vaping is 95 percent safer. The heightened alarmism around the lung injuries immediately reversed the four to five percent annual decline in smoking rates our country has enjoyed since vaping became prevalent in 2015. It also resulted in the first annual increase in smoking rate in 30 years, and only the second annual increase in smoking rates since data started being collected in 1965.
When President Joe Biden began his campaign for president, he quickly adopted the term “follow the science.” After several years of desperately fighting for the ability to continue offering smokers a less harmful way to treat their addiction, this was music to my ears.
Dave Morris – Inside Sources – 2021-10-05.