Youth vaping at lowest level in decade, why restrict it for adults

Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

I don’t smoke and I don’t vape, yet I like the idea that I retain that freedom. Vaping is the use of e-cigarettes that mirror smoking tobacco cigarettes while using a battery to create an aerosol vapor of flavors and nicotine. With all the progress being made to reduce underage vaping, why then is the government trying to restrict the use of vapes for consenting adults?\

The Food & Drug Administration(FDA) announced on September 5, 2024, “half a million fewer U.S. youth reported current use of e-cigarettes in 2024 compared to 2023, according to new data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) released today in conjunction of the FDA and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” Both vaping products and nicotine pouches are down by 7.7% in 2003 and 5.9% in 2024. These are great numbers and speak to the idea that the social pressures on kids, in addition to educational efforts.

It is good that young people are being healthier and staying away from the cigarettes that were everywhere in the last few decades. They also are staying away from vaping and other products that are less harmful.

One benefit of both nicotine pouches and vaping products, including flavored ones, is that they help to get people off smoking hard core tobacco products like regular cigarettes. Having more vaping options is helping those addicted. It is bad policy to ban flavored vaping products when they are saving lives and reducing health care costs. In 1938 a researcher at Johns Hopkins published the first statistical analysis showing the difference in health between smokers and non-smokers.

The data on this issue is being ignored. The empirical formula for nicotine has been known since 1843. Vaping helps those addicted to nicotine and tobacco products to kick the habit and become healthier. That fact alone should lead the FDA to approve flavored vaping products. Given that vaping has less of the harmful and addictive properties of cigarettes in would seem to reason that they are in fact a step down for the legacy cigarettes of the 20th century.

Government sometimes ignores their own data. The same FDA that found the rate of youth vaping decreasing is very slow to approve new vaping products. They only approved 34 tobacco and menthol-flavored e-cigarette products and devices over the past few years with mountains of applications rejected. The legacy tobacco industry has been successful in using government power to slow the rollout of new alternatives to smoking traditional cigarettes.

The power of Big Tobacco over our Federal Government is a problem. It serves their purpose to have less alternatives to smoking and the government is forwarding those interests by not approving more applications for new alternatives to cigarettes. The FDA needs to stop carrying Big Tabacco’s water in this instance.

Bans on the state level have proven to be a failure and provide further evidence that bans on flavored vaping is a mistake. Justin Leventhal writing at Real Clear Markets cited evidence from Massachusetts, which attempted a ban of flavored vapes back in 2019 “leading to black markets and sales from bordering states.” A black market was created because the people of Massachusetts still wanted those products, while the state suffered a massive decrease in tax revenues. There has been amazing progress since San Francisco was the first city to accommodate non-smokers in restaurants, with Vermont being the first state to outright ban all indoor smoking. But we cannot allow special interest groups within the same industry to sway federal regulators

I have no interest in any flavored vaping product, or tobacco in general. I do pass by many tobacco fields in the south where I now reside. So, this cash crop still has value in the open market. Since we all live in this republic that allows us to make our own legal decisions. A chipping away at or banning anyone from using a legal product, even one they will never use, is an infringement on freedom.

Dr. Phil Kiver holds a Phd in Strategic Studies from National American University.

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