Woman Vaping via Max Pixel
San Francisco is home to Juul Labs, the biggest producer of the e-cig. Which is why the almost unanimous decision to ban the sale of e-cigs is so shocking to some in the area. But San Francisco’s city attorney, Dennis Herrera, shared in a statement after the vote that, “This is a decisive step to help prevent another generation of San Francisco children from becoming addicted to nicotine.”
However, spokesman Ted Kwong of Juul Labs, shared in a written response to the decision that:
“this full prohibition will drive former adult smokers who successfully switched to vapor products back to deadly cigarettes, deny the opportunity to switch for current adult smokers, and create a thriving black market instead of addressing the actual causes of underage access and use.”
San Francisco passes ban on e-cigarette sales, a US first — CNN
There are many who tend to agree with Mr. Kwong’s and even go as far as to question why aren’t tobacco products banned then, but these people are missing a big point here. Tobacco use in teenagers has drastically drop over the last two decades — a survey done by Health and Human Services cites tobacco use in 12th graders is down to 3.6 in 2018. That’s quite the number when compared to cigarette smoking in 12th graders in 1990, which was at 19.1%.
That same HHS article shares that:
“From 2011 to 2016, the percentage of 12th-grade students who had ever used an e-cigarette increased from 4.7 to 13 percent, down from a peak in 2015 of 16 percent. For the first time in 2014, more teenagers used e-cigarettes or vaped nicotine than smoked cigarettes—a trend that continues. In 2017, 11 percent of high school students reported vaping nicotine at least once in the past 30 days.
HHS Adolescents and Tobacco: Trends
Yes, perhaps tobacco should be banned but the campaign to show the horrors of smoking has worked in the US. This is evident through those numbers above. E-cigs were never fully vetted by the FDA and the effects were not well known for several years. There is now a large body of evidence showing vaping causes bronchiolitis obliterans, commonly known as popcorn lung. Popcorn lung causes symptoms similar to COPD and is a very serious lung disease!
San Francisco’s decision brings many, many things to the forefront. Will a ban like this hurt small business who rely on tobacco sales to drive up their bottomline? Will former traditional cigarette smokers go back to their old habits? And will it actually be harder for young people to get e-cigs? While America is usually perceived as the devouring maw of capitalism, there is always hope within the country for change. Hope happens one city at a time.
