According to reports, the Food and Drug Administration under Trump has announced that Americans will no longer be allowed to purchase any nicotine-based vaping cartridges that contain flavors like fruit, candy or dessert because these tend to appeal to teenagers.
The only e-cigarettes that the FDA will allow to be sold moving forward are menthol and tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes – because the Americans who pay FDA salaries apparently can't be trusted to make their own decisions without the nanny state government telling them what to do.
Exempt from the ban are "large, tank-based vaping devices," which will continue to be sold at smoke shops as they long have been. But pre-flavored e-cigarettes that appeal to younger people are now off-limits – because, again, limiting Americans' freedoms will apparently "make America great again."
The Trump administration had originally planned to ban all flavored vapes, including the tank-based varieties. But because of much backlash, the current administration retreated by gutting these major provisions, which will allow the multibillion-dollar vaping market to continue.
"E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that typically heat a flavored nicotine solution into an inhalable aerosol," explains Breitbart News about what an e-cigarette usually involves. "They have been pitched to adults as a less-harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes, but there is limited data on their ability to help smokers quit."
For more related news about government interference into Americans' ability to live freely, be sure to check out Tyranny.news.
We can't help but object to Breitbart's rationale, here, as it suggests that the only things that should be legal for Americans to purchase and use are things that contain associated "data" to show their "ability" to accomplish some public health agenda.
Regardless of whether or not e-cigarettes help people to quit smoking real cigarettes, the fact remains that it's not within the purview of the FDA or any other government agency to ban them on the basis that they're not "helpful," or that children might try to purchase and use them.
Children do things all the time that they shouldn't do, but that doesn't mean that we ban the targets of their mischief. If we banned everything that was misused by someone out there in society, then nothing would be legal.
But this is the new approach to "freedom" in the new United States, where nanny state thinking has infected nearly every crevice of American life. Whether it's herbal remedies like cannabis or kratom (mitragyna speciose), raw milk or non-fluoridated water, the government is hellbent on eliminating all forms of freedom that it claims are a "threat" to "public health."
"We have to protect our families," Trump told reporters right before the e-cigarette ban, implying that freedom somehow puts "our families" at risk, and thus needs to be eliminated. "At the same time, it's a big industry. We want to protect the industry."
In other words, Americans are only allowed to have "freedom" when a "big industry" benefits from massive sales. This is why the FDA refuses to go after the tobacco industry, which we would similarly oppose on the grounds that people should be allowed to smoke tobacco if they so choose without the government getting in the way.
"Even the Republicans are buying into the nanny state," noted one Breitbart commenter about this latest news from the Trump administration. "These aren't the vaping products that resulted in sickness and death, but hey, 'we gotta do something!'"
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