Although Raja Krishnamoorthi says “adults can do what they want,” he is determined not to let them.
In my syndicated column last week, I noted that politicians who favor new taxes and restrictions on nicotine vaping products tend to ignore the lifesaving potential of this harm-reducing alternative to conventional cigarettes.
One of those politicians, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D–Ill.), responded with a letter to the Chicago Sun-Times that proves my point. Krishnamoorthi exaggerates the threat posed by underage vaping, conflates vaping with tobacco use, and insists “there’s simply no evidence” that e-cigarettes help smokers quit.
Krishnamoorthi, who last year spuriously urged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban e-cigarettes as a COVID-19 hazard, thinks “vapes are a huge health threat to millions of America’s young people.” To back up that claim, he cites data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), which show that vaping by high school students fell by 29 percent in 2020 after rising substantially the two previous years. Ignoring that drop, Krishnamoorthi instead emphasizes that “20% of high schoolers [are] currently using this highly addictive product,” meaning they reported vaping in the previous month. That figure is down from about 28 percent in 2019.
Jacob Sullum – Reason – 2021-09-26.
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