The DeSantis administration refused to be taken in by moral panic and public health and the state’s small businesses are both better off for it.
It’s hard to believe that before the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most contentious issues in public health was how to regulate electronic cigarettes. In 2019, an outbreak of lung illnesses and deaths was attributed to e-cigarettes. Confusion abounded because e-cigarettes had never been linked to such illnesses and are promoted by many public health experts as a safer alternative to smoking. E-cigarettes don’t contain or burn tobacco, so they are a dramatically safer way for smokers to consume nicotine.
What the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) termed EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping device use-associated lung injury) spurred several states to issue executive orders banning e-cigarettes or e-cigarette flavors outright. After an exhaustive investigation, however, the CDC found nicotine e-cigarettes were not responsible for EVALI.
EVALI resulted from an existing prohibition on marijuana, with victims inhaling black market THC cartridges laced with a Vitamin E acetate.
Guy Bentley and Adrian Moore – Reason Foundation – 2021-06-21.
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