An onslaught of negative media coverage has severely diminished the public reputation of vaping products in recent weeks, with many legislators and activists around the country now openly calling for vaping to be banned. While certain anecdotal cases reveal the dangers of dubiously-sourced vaping products, it’s a matter of fact that banning vaping would be a much greater problem than any of those we’re currently grappling with.
Vaping doesn’t need to be banned – it needs to be closely regulated. When it comes to fighting much harsher smoking, especially, the benefits of vaping aren’t considered nearly enough. Here’s why banning vaping would be a serious problem for society.
Prohibition seldom works
The first and most obvious reason that banning vaping would be a problem is that it almost certainly wouldn’t work. Seldom if ever in the history of prohibition has outright banning an illicit substance actually succeeded. In most cases – most infamously that of alcoholic prohibition in the United States – outlawing a substance actually bolstered demand for it in certain areas while enabling criminals to profit off what should be a publicly-regulated sphere of economic activity that’s nevertheless forced into the shadows. If we attempt to broaden the war on drugs by going after vaping, we’ll achieve nothing other than making them more dangerous than we ever intended.
A second and almost equally obvious reason that banning vaping would be a disaster is that it would force thousands if not millions of consumers back into the pocket of Big Tobacco. Regardless of one’s personal preferences when it comes to vaping products, it’s an incontestable matter of fact that A. e-cigarettes are actually healthier than traditional smoking and B. many people are unaware of this. By outlawing vaping, we’ll be taking a tried-and-tested method for getting smokers to adopt healthier habits and turning it into a prohibited, stigmatized act that will be surrounded by harmful misinformation.
It’s also worth noting that the reason we’re even discussing vaping right now is mostly because the modern media environment is rife with disinformation, extravagant embellishing, and dishonest actors more than willing to peddle misleading narratives for the sake of generating clicks. The so-called “lung illness” derived from vape products that resulted in a handful of deaths that generated international outrage wasn’t spawned by the innate dangers of vaping, but rather from illicitly sourced vape products that should never have been consumed. If the market was properly regulated, this crisis would never have occurred. More importantly, we’re somehow acting as if a tiny amount of deaths from bogus products is tantamount to an entire industry being illegitimate, yet we’re somehow still comfortable as a society accepting tobacco products, which kill millions of people every year.
Don’t let big tobacco win
Big Tobacco would absolutely love it if vaping were outlawed – that way, impressionable youngsters and the tobacco-curious would dabble with fatal cigarettes and poisonous cigars instead of far-safer vaping products that pose radically fewer risks to users. Companies like Hot Juice and other vape providers should be regulated rather than outlawed, as prohibiting legitimate companies from foraying into the budding vape market is tantamount to forcing users to rely on shoddy, illegitimate third parties that will hurt more people with bogus products.
Is vaping made for everyone? Certainly not. Yet those adult individuals who choose to rely on vaping products instead of paying for tobacco are being forced to comply with illogical regulations that were literally spawned by a media panic over a handful of deaths from illicit products that never should have been sold. Meanwhile, millions of people are killed by tobacco each year, yet no one bats an eye.
