Vaping banned in san francisco: what about public health?
San Francisco wants to ban vaping as early as 2019. A law proposal has recently been put forth to restrict the sale of electronic cigarettes. Only products approved by the FDA could be marketed. Currently, no vaping device has been approved by the American authority responsible for green-lighting food and drugs before they hit the market.
According to Dennis Herrera, the elected city attorney, this measure will become mandatory to limit the explosion of e-cig use among teens. Reducing vaping rates in adolescent populations is most definitely a noble and worthwhile goal, but it must not be forgotten that electronic cigarettes serve another purpose: a nicotine substitute for adults addicted to traditional cigarettes, which are well known to be cancerous.
New legislation to pressure the FDA?
Dennis Herrera has vocally deplored the FDA’s lax regulation methods due to which electronic cigarettes hit the market without any evaluation. The FDA is expected to roll out a control process by… 2023. Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services published a 300-page report on electronic cigarettes. Upon reading this report, medical professional Jeremy Samuel Faust concluded that e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful to health than tobacco.
And furthermore, despite the increased rate of vaping in teen populations, the rate of smoking tobacco products has stagnated since 2011. This tends towards the conclusion that vaping is in no way a gateway drug to smoking cigarettes, despite what some may believe. With this in mind, it seems illogical to ban vaping products by touting the vague objective of “protecting the youth”.
Until there is a formal conclusion that e-cigarettes are safe, Dennis Herrera’s law proposal is a preventive measure, it raises an important question. If cigarettes have been proven to be the cause of deadly diseases, why have they not been banned in San Francisco?
