Michael Bloomberg Is Back at His Nanny Game

SACRAMENTO — We haven’t heard much lately from Michael Bloomberg, the one-time New York City mayor, founder of the Bloomberg News organization, and head of his own philanthropy. His disappearance from the limelight probably is a relief given that, during his 12 years in the mayor’s office, he gained a much-deserved reputation as the Big Apple’s nanny-in-chief. I’m not defending many of his unhealthy targets, but his willingness to use the government to try to improve our own personal eating and drinking habits was, however well-intentioned, inappropriately prohibitionist.

Among his public health crusades, Bloomberg banned the sale of large-sized sugary drinks, although that was overturned by the courts. He banned restaurants from cooking with trans fats and ordered them to post calories on their menus. He launched a campaign to lower sodium, imposed stricter regulations on tanning salons, and, of course, imposed a host of restrictive anti-tobacco laws — including a widespread ban on smoking in public places. Even NPR concluded that his multiple campaigns had “mixed results.”

But last week, Bloomberg reemerged with a column in Bloomberg News regarding the Trump administration’s new policy on vaping that is filled with misinformation. It’s totally on brand, but much of it — starting with the headline — is buncombe. If the U.S. Food and Drug Administration follows the former mayor’s advice, it will undermine legitimate efforts to dissuade people from smoking. But let’s start with that headline: “The FDA’s About-Face on Flavored Vapes Will Prove Deadly for Kids.” It’s an inaccurate summary of an exceedingly modest regulatory change.

The administration has issued new draft guidance for companies that apply for premarket FDA approval to market flavored Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS), or vaping products. It’s far from an about-face. As I reported last month for The American Spectator, “It would continue to oppose the sale of fruity, sweet, and candy flavors that appeal to young people while possibly allowing the sale of mint, spice, and coffee flavors that appeal to adults. Manufacturers would still face a long, costly and bureaucratic federal process to get approval, without any guarantee adult consumers would choose spice or coffee flavors over illicit ones.”

The core issue: Vaping is far less deadly than smoking combustible cigarettes — 95 percent less risky, per Great Britain’s main public health agency, Public Health England. The bureaucratic FDA has not approved many vape products as tobacco cessation devices, but research shows that smokers successfully switch to them. They also switch to flavored pouches that use pharmaceutical-grade nicotine similar to that used in FDA-approved products such as nicotine gum. Nicotine is addictive, but not dangerous. These lower-risk nicotine products save lives.

However, public health advocates fear that fruity flavors entice teens to try vaping, thus starting them on a life of nicotine addiction. For those of us who promote tobacco harm reduction, this argument is a bit frustrating. We, of course, want to keep teens from using any form of tobacco or nicotine product, but all of these products are legally off-limits to people who are under age 21. The idea of banning flavors in products for adults to stop them from appealing to non-adults seems less sensible than simply enforcing the current purchase age laws. The FDA tries to address these competing concerns by making distinctions between fruity flavors that might appeal to kids, while potentially allowing the sale of products with flavors (coffee, spice) that adults generally choose.

Whatever one thinks of the draft guidance — and I think it does very little to speed up the approval of potentially life-saving products, and ignores the broader evidence about the adult appeal of flavors — it certainly does not “threaten to undermine 25 years of progress on smoking, much of it spurred by actions our administration took in New York City,” as Bloomberg argued. This line struck me as worthy of further mention: “It’s true that there is some evidence e-cigarettes can help smokers quit, but it’s not sweet and fruity flavors that smokers crave.”

I’m glad that Bloomberg admits e-cigarettes can help smokers quit, but the evidence suggests that those fruity and sweet flavors are one reason why. Currently, in California and other locales with a flavor ban, only tobacco-flavored vapes are legally available. Per testimony to the FDA from my R Street Institute colleague, Dr. Jeffrey Smith, “Adult vapers who initially choose tobacco flavor frequently migrate toward sweet and fruit flavors as they become more experienced. This migration pattern suggests that non-tobacco flavors serve an important role in sustaining long-term use of the reduced-risk product and preventing relapse to combustible cigarettes.”

It might be hard for a professional nanny to understand, but people have different tastes and motivations. The goal should be to allow a wide range of products that help smokers minimize the risk of their nicotine addiction. Yet Bloomberg goes for the most incendiary rhetoric possible: “Parents have long warned their children against accepting candy from strangers, to keep them safe from predators. Tobacco companies offering flavored vapes is the new version of that old lesson — and disgracefully, government is getting in bed with the predators.”

Shockingly, the majority of vapes sold in the United States are illegally imported, mostly from China, based on the agency’s own data. But the FDA — and Bloomberg — ignore the reason for the flourishing black market: The FDA’s failure to approve, in a timely manner, a wide range of ENDS and other lower-risk tobacco and nicotine products. By the way, the stricter the vaping bans, the more likely it is for adults and teens to turn back toward combustible cigarettes.

In reality, the administration isn’t “allowing unregulated products full of toxins to poison children.” It has merely proposed loosening one step in a long administrative approval process that could eventually allow adults to access the flavored products they prefer. In their zeal to improve public health, nannies like to make over-the-top allegations that, upon close examination, often undermine the goals they claim to seek. Improving public health is a worthy goal, which is why the administration should ignore Bloomberg’s latest hectoring.