Strongly agree. We’ve already learned that prohibition doesn’t work and that people will always find other ways to get their fix.
If flavored vapes are “marketed to children”, what about flavored THC edibles and fruity/candy flavored alcohol? What about energy drinks and highly caffeinated sodas? What about high calorie ultra-palatable foods with absurd quantities of high fructose corn syrup? How is nicotine so different from any of the other drugs that society has decided are socially acceptable?
Humanity has had a relationship with mind altering substances since the dawn of time. It’s ingrained in our cultures, and may even be partially responsible for how human intelligence has adapted to where it is today. Nobody is going to overwrite thousands of years of history by banning vapes. People will just find some other way to access nicotine and other substances, probably by switching back to smoking or chewing. A brief ten-year interval of pushback against smoking in select countries didn’t mean that people no longer wanted nicotine, it just meant that people wanted a less objectionable way of consuming it than burning leaves in paper.
Yeah, that is basically my view on it. Vaping isn't healthy, but it seems to be healthier than the alternatives. If you aren't willing to ban all nicotine products, just tax it and treat it like other nicotine products.
The problem is that this is multiple times more addictive than earlier nicotine products. The previous generation in the US almost stopped smoking entirely then this reversed all progress.
Bigger and faster hits alongside fruity flavours and and easy to hide/disipate vapour. Everyone knew if you smoked in the boys room, it is a lot easier to vape in the boys room.
Plus you don't have to commit like with a cigarette. The people I know who vape will just instinctively just pick it up and have a single huff'n'puff every couple of minutes, whereas when they were addicted to smoking it was five minutes of getting up, going outside and standing in the cold/rain/whatever, dealing with ash, dealing with the awful smell of stale smoke on their hands, etc. The lack of convenience with smoking cigarettes meant they'd only have one once every three-quarters of an hour or so most of the time, whereas the vaping is constant.
I also find that somehow people removed nicotine as one of the harmful components of cigarettes and consider it very acceptable in vaping and the "healthy alternative" to smoking. Many smokers I've met consider themselves a very succesful quitter by switching to vaping, yet their wallets still bleed for big tobacco companies.
Who cares it's my health not yours. Life is pretty shit. Everything cost to much, forced into servitude by a system I have very little control over. Why would I want more life?
Don't forget banning excess eating, red meat, sugar, and staying up too late. Let us work together to create our utopia of perfect, boring humans who are peak physical specimen, exactly the way we want them to be.