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Americans who are trying to kick their nasty smoking habit have found healthier alternatives in e-cigarettes and vapor products that could, quite literally, save their lives. But the bureaucrats at the Food and Drug Administration are trying to put this $3.5 billion industry out of business.
Nice first post, Jason. Welcome to Ricochet.
These “Mom & Pop” shops look more like Cheech & Chong dumps.
That’s because vapes offer an odor-free way to get any drug you like delivered in public. People are even putting meth in the darn things.
Don’t try arguing the War on Drugs with me — I’m for it. I just think that this post presents a remarkably sanitized version of the issue; perhaps the only remotely sanitary thing about it.
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Welcome aboard!
Welcome Jason, excellent post. BDB must be tired from stuffing the turkey.
Heck no! We’re going out for Chinese. On Sunday.
Well, enjoy your MSG and sulfite filled meal.
Jason, Yes to your post. No to a cautionary principal that presumes danger and requires proof of absolute safety. Yes to the freedom to shop at Cheech & Chong’s if one is so inclined.
JP
The music must be pretty entertaining, though:
Don’t just stand there! Regulate something!!
Back before Black Friday, I discovered chewing Nicorette increased EV while playing poker. So the FDA is now promoting cancer and poverty.
The FDA would also like to turn Vitamin C over to the DEA. Yep, these are the bureaucrats we definitely want to micromanage our lives.
I remember back in the ’80s when I was trying to quit smoking, of being in a night club offering to trade somebody a Nicorette for a cigarette. Plenty of folks offered me a cigarette nobody took the Nicorette.
These outfits are just head shops, and thank God this whole Republic isn’t one big libertarian ghetto.
Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? The regulators exist to regulate, and they’re going to regulate until you’re blue in the face. It’s what they’re there for.
The problem is that smoking and tobacco tax revenue is down. Promises were made based on the concept that the tobacco tax revenue would be X number of dollars or more per year, but that is not happening. Plus sooner or later people are going to notice that whole government agencies are dedicated to regulating a product that is being used less and less frequently. So these agencies are in danger of funding cuts and program elimination. This can not be allowed to happen. Thus enter vapping. A virgin product and industry in need of both regulation and taxation. Tax structure can be modified and interpreted to cover it. Tax revenue can be collected. Regulations can be repurposed. Government jobs can be saved. It might even save a life. The world is saved.
I figured they’d come for the vitamins, eventually, but I hadn’t heard about this one.
They’re definitely pushing the head shop ambience, BDB, probably to rook in the boomers like me.
Let your freak flag fly!
EDIT: Welcome, Jason!
News about vitamin C and the DEA doesn’t seem terribly conspicuous on Google. It would not surprise me, but does anyone have a link?
I know the DEA also monitors substances believed to be used in the manufacture of drugs. I wouldn’t know if vitamin C belongs in that category, but several perfectly sober chemicals do.
BDB, you are so frickin’ out of your mind. I mean, no conservative hates libertarians as much as I do, but still, you’re just wrong…
Talk about mission creep, or creepy, or whatever.
I’m just trying to figure out what “perfectly sober” chemicals are, and what chemicals can do to get out of that strait jacket.
Maybe a re-breather which gives the vapors and keeps the exhalation from the non-smokers in the vicinity can be made available cheaply. Just the thin clear plastic hose to the nose. You can even pretend that you are getting oxygen in case you have bluenoses nearby.
Or, noting that Obamacare needs subscribers to fund itself, (paying full boat or not), outlawing ecigarettes might lead to a need for opiates to break the dependency on nicotine. Opiates require a prescription, hence a need for Obamacare.
Personally I’d go for the re-breather. Cheaper than Barry’s preferred option.
If the vape makers just had the Feds slap a big old tax on it, they could get subsidies.
In lovely Ontario the provincial government introduced laws equating tobacco smoking and vaping as of Jan. 1, 2016. Practically no vaping will be allowed in public spaces,workplaces, etc. One wonders how are vaping enthusiasts going to test and taste “juice” in these mom – and – pop shops (we have plenty of them here).
It was, until the Progressives came along and started regulating everything, and started the totally ineffective* War on Drugs. Generally, Conservatives think that was a better time.
I gather you’re not a Conservative, then?
*It was incredibly effective at destroying our liberties and the Constitution, which was the Progressives’ real goal.
Somewhere, someone is having fun. This must be stopped at all costs! That is what government and morals police are all about.
I’m conservative as in: I don’t want that trash attracting dirtbags to my neighborhood. A vape user may be legally the same as a cigarette smoker. But a vape shop is a like a head shop, not a tobacconist, and for obvious reasons.
I would love to have this sort of thing settled locally. Instead, we’ll get some Supreme Court decision affirming the inalienable “right to vape”, and let no city infringe upon it.
So let’s just stipulate that a store dedicated to a legal device for ingesting any sort of drug you wish has little in common with Big Tobacco, and everything in common with a shop dedicated to rolling papers, roach clips, skull pipes, weed-leaf ballcaps, “Legalize!” posters with Bob Marley, and a clutch of patchouli-soaked idiots stumbling around the parking lot *if you’re lucky*.
These dumps make cigarettes look downright healthy.
My wife vapes, she’s trying to quit smoking. The place she patronizes looks nothing like the head shops I remember from the ’60s. It’s right on the main thoroughfare, not hidden in an alley.
This is not to say all vape places are open and aboveboard but they aren’t all dens of iniquity either. The place my wife visits is all glass cases and not drug paraphernalia apparent.
Vaping is a legitimate business that, so far, is legal. I hope it continues to be so.
Congratulations to your wife, and good luck! I used the gum to great effect several years ago. I just gave myself a license to chew as much of that stuff as I wanted for as long as I wanted, and let nature take its course. Made it through a year in Afghanistan (and more remarkably, the year afterward) without a single smoke.
One day at a time.
I’ve quit smoking three times for long periods. I’m in the sixth year of having quit now. The most important rule for staying non-smoking is that you can’t smoke just one cigarette. If you light one up, you’ll be back to full-time smoking shortly. Or at least that’s been my experience.
This is so true, I am in year 9 of my umpteenth quit during 53 years of heavy smoking. I’ve managed to stay quit for so long by understanding that I am a Nicotine addict. I will always be an addict. Lighting up a cigarette will be my downfall. This time I quit cold turkey with no aids and this time it worked. Kind of like AA, you will always be an alcoholic. Do not take that first drink. I’ve had more than one friend start smoking again after lighting up that next cigarette.
Those that are interested go to: http://www.whyquit.com there is a vast amount of information and why it’s better to just quit without any aids.