Florida governor concurs with President Trump on vaping, postpones ban on flavored e-cigarettes
After President Donald Trump received backlash from a group of bipartisan lawmakers for his abrupt decision in November to back off from a proposed ban on flavored e-cigarettes, his political ally Gov. Ron DeSantis seems hesitant on a ban as well.
“I think the results so far have been [that] these are kind of bad products,” DeSantis told reporters following Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting at the Capitol.
“But I just think you’ve got to be careful, because you can sit there and say you’re not going to allow this flavor or that, but people will react with their behavior accordingly. I want to do it in a way that’s actually going to lead to as good of outcomes as we can.”
In response to a reporter’s question, the Republican governor addressed the youth vaping trend affecting more than 5 million teenagers, according to the 2019 National Youth Tobacco Survey conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
As health officials continue to investigate vaping-related illnesses and deaths, DeSantis said he wants to wait on the results. The Florida Phoenix previously reported one death in Florida, per the Florida Health Department.
“What I want to do is wait to see what the CDC says about some of the most recent health problems that we’ve seen,” DeSantis said. “You have people that have died because of some of this. That’s not really been the case for most of the time vaping’s been around. This has been around for several years now. I know it’s gotten more popular.”
That deaths related to vaping might be linked to the “bootleg stuff containing THC, and all this other stuff in there,” DeSantis said.
Issac Morgan – The Florida Phoenix – December 11, 2019.