New Bill Increases Tax on E-Cigarettes

[Alan Selk]

14. Ideology and the democrats

It is disappointing that it is the democrats who are leading the fight against tobacco harm reduction. It is always the liberals who are pushing bans on electronic cigarettes and calling for higher taxes on smokeless tobacco (contrary to common myth smokeless tobacco is about 99% less harmful then smoking).
Liberals are all for harm reduction when it comes to sex and drugs, but when it comes to tobacco ideology pushes out all rational thinking.

Sweden has the lowest smoking rate of any country in the EU, yet their tobacco use is as least as high as anywhere else. They also have the lowest tobacco related disease rate of all industrialized countries, including the US. The reason for that is because the most popular form of tobacco in Sweden is snus.

Decades of studies have shown snus to have no connection to cancer or heart disease. The life expectancy of snus users is essentially the same as non-tobacco users. Yet somehow it is always the democrats that are claiming snus is a grave threat to public health. The same thing is happening with electronic cigarettes.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009, overwhelmingly voted on by democrats and sighed by Obama is a perversion of good science and does nothing more then protect the statues que. It has been correctly called the Marlboro protection act of 2009 by harm reduction advocates.