How Trump can stop e-cigarette prohibition and reform public health
Federal tobacco policy is failing the American public and destroying businesses across the country. Only sweeping reforms can protect public health and save an entire industry from prohibition, according to a new report from the R Street Institute.
Prohibitive regulation of e-cigarettes and reduced-risk tobacco products combined with a public health establishment committed to an ideology of nicotine abstinence is creating an environment where Americans will find it harder to quit smoking and save themselves from an early death, the report argues.
More than 480,000 Americans died from smoking-related diseases in 2015: more than alcohol, car, illicit drug, HIV and gun deaths combined. The cause of these deaths is the deadly smoke inhaled into the lungs, not nicotine.
With the advent of e-cigarettes and the possible introduction of heat-not-burn products onto the market, smokers can mimic the experience of smoking and get the nicotine they desire while significantly reducing their risk for deadly disease.
But thanks to draconian regulation and misleading information from ideologically-driven public health authorities, the opportunity for a revolution in tobacco harm reduction is being lost and the American public will suffer as a result, according to the report’s authors Clive Bates, Professor Davis Sweanor and Eli Lehrer.
