Disposable vape flavored vaping e-cigarette products are displayed in a convenience store in El Segundo, Calif., June 23, 2022. gettyimagesbank-TNS
The decline in youth smoking is one of the great public-health achievements of the 21st century, celebrated by conservatives and liberals alike, yet the White House is now in the process of endangering it. Unless it reverses course, millions of American children will suffer the consequences.
Tobacco-related death and disease do not discriminate by party. Everyone knows someone who has been affected by the ravages of tobacco use, but thanks to smart policies that have dramatically cut smoking rates, those stories have become less common.
Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30 percent of US high school students smoked cigarettes. By 2024, that number had fallen to 1.7 percent — an astoundingly large decline. Unfortunately, there’s more to the story.
Hiding in that progress is the rise of e-cigarettes, or vapes. About 8 percent of high school students use them regularly. Of those who do, 9 in 10 are using flavored e-cigarettes. Most have already tried and failed to quit.
Those statistics are deeply troubling, since the list of potential harms from e-cigarettes is long: lung damage and respiratory illnesses, heart disease, impairment to young people’s brain development, and other health problems, given the toxic mix of chemicals they contain. But the dangers don’t stop there.
Using e-cigarettes makes teens three to four times more likely to smoke traditional cigarettes, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Tobacco industry executives know this, of course, and they know the best way to hook teens is with sweet and fruity flavors.
In 2019, President Donald Trump promised to crack down on this problem with “strong rules and regulations” — and to his credit, he did. The Food and Drug Administration banned flavors other than menthol and tobacco in 2020, and it made an enormous difference, helping to dramatically cut high school vaping rates. But after the tobacco industry’s backroom lobbying and political donations, the FDA recently reversed course on flavored products without even conducting a scientific review.
The industry claims that only those ages 21 and older can legally buy any tobacco product. But that’s laughable, given how easy it is for children to get around restrictions.
In fairness, the industry does make one valid point: The administration has failed to stop the flow of flavored vapes from China and other countries that are sold illegally here. Yet the way to deal with that problem — as with the smuggling of fentanyl — isn’t to legalize their production and sale. It’s to get tougher and smarter in cracking down on them. Instead, the government is doing the opposite: giving up.
Source: Korea Times News
