Friday, January 24, 2020

How To Solve The Vaping Crisis In Five Easy Steps

First of all, the "vaping crisis" is actually two different problems that just happen to share the same delivery system.  The first is the explosion of nicotine vaping (particularly the JUUL brand, with very high nicotine levels) among teens from late 2017 onwards.  The second is the "mystery" vaping lung illness, now known as EVALI, that has finally been linked to the cause that we suspected for months now:  Mostly black-market and gray-market THC (and probably CBD) vape cartridges containing the additive Vitamin E Acetate, which is apparently VERY bad for the lungs.  Instead of conflating the two, we must realize that they are two different issues with different solutions, while also noting that pushing them into the black market will only pour gasoline on the fire.

Thus, Twenty-One Debunked recommends the following:
  1. Legalize cannabis, vaping and otherwise, for everyone 18 and older, period. 
  2. For cannabis vape products, ban Vitamin E Acetate and all other additives that are not on a narrow list of approved additives.  Implement strict quality control to test for questionable substances and issue product recalls as needed.  (Also require quality control of nicotine vape products while we're at it.)
  3. Cap the nicotine content of nicotine vape products at similar levels as found in the UK, Europe, and Israel, and also subject such products to the same advertising restrictions as combustible cigarettes.
  4. Tax nicotine vape products, but keep the tax lower than the tax on combustible cigarettes (or alternatively, raise the cigarette tax even higher).
  5. Strictly enforce existing purchase age limits on vendors via compliance checks, but avoid knee-jerk reactionary policy measures such as broad flavor bans or raising the smoking/vaping age to 21, which will drive vapers to the black market.
Do these things and tone down the moral panic, and both of these problems will soon wither on the vine.  But that would make too much sense, of course.

1 comment:

  1. Moral panics don't offer good solutions. It was always easier to strengthen enforcement of the then existing smoking/vaping age of 18-19. It was also just as easy to increase taxes on cigarettes and on vaping devices. Also, it would not been too difficult to remove flavors on vaping devices. I think these solutions would have reduced valuing by girls and boys of 13-17 years of age than a smoking/vaping age of 21. This is what happens when higher minimum ages take precedence over sensible solutions as said here.

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