But what the hell business does the FDA have in regulating which flavors of vapes are sold? That’s like saying you can sell peanut candy bars but not caramel.
Yes I get the logic that some flavors appeal more to kids, but honestly I think it’s crap. Whether they do appeal more to kids or not, it’s restricting the use of a legal product by adults. That’s not how a Free Country is supposed to work. This to me is no different than trying to demand IDs to watch porn online. Protecting kids is honorable, reducing freedom to (supposedly, but not really) protect kids is not what America is supposed to be.
As I see it, if kids are vaping, that’s a parental problem that should be solved by parents. If you don’t teach your kids not to smoke or vape you’re a bad parent.
People tend to want the government to parent for them. It’s like night and day when you see which parents actually spend time talking to their kids. I try to make a point to have an actual conversation with my son daily. Not just shallow smalltalk, but actual conversation.
I get that what I’m saying sounds absolutist and simplistic. I get that there’s lots of influences on kids and peer pressure and whatnot.
But I’m also going by my own experience as a kid. You were a kid too once, yes?
My parents didn’t yell or scream or threaten. They explained. Even as a child I understood why smoking was bad and what damage it did to lungs. By the time I was old enough to consider smoking or have any opportunity to do so, I understood lung cancer, and addiction, and that it’s much easier to start something addictive than to stop. These things had been explained to me openly, without masking the ugliness of cancer or death or addiction.
So when I say TEACH your kids not to smoke, I mean that literally. Don’t preach at them or threaten them or yell at them, because it doesn’t work and kids tune it out. Don’t wait until they’re in middle school to show them the bad side of the world.
You are making up a story that fits what you believe. The other commenter is right, you dont have kids and its very apparent in how you write. Confidently having an opinion and then making up details to suit that opinion is a childish thing to do.
So telling you the FACTUAL truth of my childhood gets rejected because it doesn’t fit your narrative?
I don’t claim every kid is like me. Lots of kids won’t listen to their parents no matter what they say. Lots of kids WILL go find vapes even if you make possession punishable by death. Lots of kids will see someone older/cooler vaping and will forget everything they learned. I don’t claim every kid is like me. I’m saying that if more parents were like mine there’d be a lot less vaping. That’s all.
What you did is make an assumption- that I don’t have kids. An assumption that you have no positive evidence either way on. And thus by your assumption, you claim I am unqualified. But again, this relies on two assumptions-- 1. that I don’t have kids, and 2. that someone who has kids is incapable of understanding the nuances of dealing with kids. I reject both assertions as unprovable.
My parents didn’t yell or scream or threaten. They explained. Even as a child I understood why smoking was bad and what damage it did to lungs. By the time I was old enough to consider smoking or have any opportunity to do so, I understood lung cancer, and addiction, and that it’s much easier to start something addictive than to stop.
I also told all that stuff when I was kid, but don’t underestimate the power of youthful arrogance and the influence of an older girl who smokes and is interested in you… I ended up being a smoker for over ten years before I finally quit. Shared my own experiences with my daughter, educated her on all the reasons not to smoke. She still ended up vaping because of youthful arrogance and the influence of an older girl that was interested in her.
You can teach a horse to water but you can’t force it to not vape. Or something.
This right here. My parents explained in all the ways they could. I still ended up smoking. We’re a society and a society should have some responsibility to its kids. What happened to. The idea that it takes a village to raise a child? Some keep trying to heap all of the responsibility on parents when they’re just being asked to forego fruity flavored cancer.
What happened to. The idea that it takes a village to raise a child?
Alive and well and codified into law by the fact that it’s illegal to sell a vape to a child or to buy a vape for a child.
when they’re just being asked to forego fruity flavored cancer.
Not asked, demanded. Their right to buy a legal product being taken away. And unlike smoking, there is not yet direct proof that vaping causes cancer. The general consensus is it’s not great for you but it’s significantly better than smoking.
Have you ever been to europe? I don’t think you have any appreciation for how successful the regulations in the US around nicotine addiction have worked.
Same thing is true in the US. Every restaurant used to have a smoking section. The diner where I grew up had ashtrays on every table and a cigarette vending machine by the entrance. And this was in a ‘nice’ town, not some backwater white trash place.
Now I can’t remember the last time I saw a restaurant that allowed smoking. Even among blue collar workers it’s MUCH less prevalent.
Vaping is somewhat more common in the US- I haven’t been to Europe in the last few years (IE since vaping really took off) so I can’t speak with authority on vaping in EU. But of my social circle- a lot more vape marijuana extracts than vape tobacco (marijuana is legal in my state of Connecticut, there’s licensed stores where you can buy weed, vape products, edibles, etc). I really only know two people that actively vape tobacco. One used Jool type pods, and I believe he quit around the time his kid was born. The other you might call an ‘enthusiast’, like she had a fancy computerized vaporizer thingy that ran on a 18650 battery and the tobacco extract came in a big bottle and she’d pour it into these thumb-sized capsules that screw onto the vaporizer gadget.
Thank you! Exactly, this isn’t a problem that should be solved by the government. If parents don’t want their kids vaping, drinking, smoking weed, eating edibles, watching porn, or anything else then parents need to police their own kids. Adults shouldn’t lose access to things just because kids might like them too.
What a self-centered take. Are we all supposed to upvote you for your lack of morality?
“I’m selfish and anything that bothers me or prevents me from doing something is wrong.” Thats what your post reads like. Clearly society needs more people like you?
I would love to kill off gerrymandering, because it’s anti-freedom and is only a tool for those in power to contradict the vote of the people. District lines should be drawn by neighborhood, without regard for the resulting vote mix.
And if you think me a Republican you are quite incorrect. I’m a registered Democrat, politically I consider myself liberal-libertarian- I think the married gay couple should have guns to defend their adopted children and their pot farm, knowing that single payer health care is there if they get hurt.
However this means I don’t fit squarely into either the red or the blue camp. I align with Republicans on issues like personal freedom and gun ownership, I align with Democrats on issues like reducing corruption (they’re not great but better than GOP at least) and environmental protection. And I’m quite unhappy with both of them as I think both separately and together they do a piss poor job of representing the interests of the American people.
As for nicotine- I don’t defend addiction, I defend freedom and a person’s right to choose what they put in their own body without excess government interference. If people make bad choices, that is their right and I reject the idea that the government should play ‘nanny state’ and save people from themselves. So for the government to say ‘you can have this flavor vape but not that flavor’ is to me no different than saying ‘you can have vanilla ice cream but not chocolate as it’s too tasty and too likely to make you fat’.
If people are making harmful bad choices, then the solution is to improve education so people grow up with the tools and the practice to make better choices, not to restrict the choices available.
I dunno man. You may be some flavour of libertarian, but not me. I am aware of the libertarian philosophy, and it is particularly an American following.
Freedom has many meanings to many people. But a free society also imposes restrictions on people’s freedom. You just can’t kill someone who annoys you. You need a proper licence in order to drive on public thoroughfares. You can’t take something that doesn’t belong to you, just because you want it. Living in a free society also imposes obligations. Other people must be taken into consideration.
In the case of vapes, and other poisons, it’s not good enough to just yell freedom and allow corporations to to sell dangerous products. Kids consume these products and their health can be affected. In a free society public health considerations will probably impact on people’s freedom. After all, seatbelts continue to save thousands and thousands of lives despite some folks feeling salty about wearing them. At least they are breathing and feeling salty.
None of this will convince you, and that’s ok. I don’t have skin in your game anyway because I don’t live in your country and therefore accept normal restrictions. If I want to live in a society and change the rules, I’ll vote for a person who will do that. Gerrymandering is illegal in my country and fair voting is the norm. I’m also glad that I don’t live in a community where individuals get to decide what rules they should follow on the basis of some nebulous concept of personal freedom.
Living in a free society also imposes obligations. Other people must be taken into consideration.
I’m also glad that I don’t live in a community where individuals get to decide what rules they should follow on the basis of some nebulous concept of personal freedom.
There’s nothing nebulous here. I offer perhaps you are arguing against a ‘stereotypical American’ who wants ‘muh Freedom!’ and then votes for people who restrict freedom. That is not me.
I like freedom, but sometimes those obligations are part of freedom. There’s a famous quote- “My right to swing my face ends where the other man’s face begins.” I believe this a good underpinning for a free society.
For example if I want to buy an apartment building, I should be able to do that. If I want to store explosives in the basement of that building, I shouldn’t be able to do that- yes it restricts my freedom to use my building’s basement as I see fit, but storing explosives in an apartment also somewhat takes away the freedom of the people living in it to life and safety.
And I can’t take something that doesn’t belong to me, because that takes away the freedom of the person who owns it.
Or take seatbelts. I agree with the regulation that cars are required to have seatbelts, airbags, ABS brakes, and a bunch of other safety equipment. I don’t believe that people should be required to wear seatbelts (or helmets on bikes/motorcycles), because that’s their body their choice. HOWEVER, I also believe that if there are multiple occupants in the car, all should be required to wear seatbelts, because in a crash their body could become a projectile that’d injure the other occupants of the vehicle.
Point is- restrict people from doing things that unreasonably endanger others, but permit people to endanger themselves if they choose.
I’m also STRONGLY against gerrymandering, because that takes away the freedom of the people to choose leaders who accurately represent them and their interests, and instead allows whoever’s drawing the map to determine or significantly increase the election’s outcome, a power that ideally nobody would have. I would argue if you claim to love freedom, but you have no problem with gerrymandering, then you don’t really understand the meaning of freedom and you are not a patriot, you are a parrot repeating what the teevee told you to say.
Anyway- applied here.
I believe if an ADULT chooses to consume a potentially harmful product, knowing the risks of it, they should be allowed to. That is how free society works with things like alcohol, caffeine, and anything else that can be psychologically addictive like marijuana, pornography, sex, video games, TV, lottery tickets, etc. Any attempt to draw a line in here is simple hypocrisy- if you can drink alcohol and trash your liver, but not smoke and trash your lungs, why? Etc.
So if you can get mesquite vapes, but not cherry vapes or menthol vapes, why? Because some asshat regulator said these flavors might appeal more to kids? Even though it’s already illegal to sell them to kids?
No, that is denying the freedom of adults to vape the flavors they want, based on a nebulous idea that kids might get them. That’s not freedom, that’s arbitrary restriction.
I like your nuanced position, but I completely disagree with it, and have already articulated as to why.
I don’t believe that you are a stereotypical American, but the whole “freedom thing” is a stereotypical American thing. I’m Australian and I believe that I have many more freedoms than most Americans. For instance, your country puts traval restrictions on you that we would never tolerate. I can travel to Cuba, or just about any country in the world freely. Same as most other Western countries. But we don’t claim to have special freedom privileges. On the other hand, Australia has one of the most restrictive gun ownership laws in the world. Lots of red tape and lots of regulation. However, by and large nobody minds because the trade-off is a mostly one of safety. The US has a gun homicide rate of about 50 times more than Australia, per capita. The US has 17 times Australia’s gun deaths over all. So, trading off some freedoms has a community benefit and we believe it is worth it. No Australian government has ever won office with a policy of undoing gun laws. Some freedoms are just not worth it. As to your seatbelt example, you deciding not to wear one might impact upon people other than yourself. Someone has to endure the trauma of scraping your body off the road. Someone has to cart your broken arse off to hospital. Someone might have to care for you for years. Possibly forever. Your freedom to not wear a seatbelt will probably impact on others freedom not to have to deal with your silly decision. And so it goes. As I said, the only country in the world who constantly bangs on about freedom, forbids what can be read in so many schools, the right of women to control their bodies, how a president who fails to garner a majority of the popular votes can still get ‘elected’, and so many more anti-freedoms. Your country also imposes it’s will on so many other countries. That’s freedom US style.
To me the Libertarian position is fundamentally selfish. It pretends to be one of freedom, but if you live in a society one must tolerate restrictions, large and small. Or, go live a hermit existence somewhere so whatever folly you choose to celebrate has zero impact upon your fellow citizens.
That’s just my opinion, of course, you are free to disagree.
Adults also get addicted to nicotine. Most developed countries are trying to lower nicotine consumption by prohibiting menthol cigarettes for example. Or by introducing generic design of the packaging, warning labels and so on. The logic is that the substance is harmful and people should not be encouraged to consume it by nice packaging or flavoring. Those are basic public health regulations like limiting where and when alcohol can be sold, how alcohol can be advertised or putting taxes on sugary drinks. I know that people in US believe all regulations infringe on their freedoms but it’s pretty standard thing in civilized countries.
I’m not in favor of firing this guy.
But what the hell business does the FDA have in regulating which flavors of vapes are sold? That’s like saying you can sell peanut candy bars but not caramel.
Yes I get the logic that some flavors appeal more to kids, but honestly I think it’s crap. Whether they do appeal more to kids or not, it’s restricting the use of a legal product by adults. That’s not how a Free Country is supposed to work. This to me is no different than trying to demand IDs to watch porn online. Protecting kids is honorable, reducing freedom to (supposedly, but not really) protect kids is not what America is supposed to be.
As I see it, if kids are vaping, that’s a parental problem that should be solved by parents. If you don’t teach your kids not to smoke or vape you’re a bad parent.
People tend to want the government to parent for them. It’s like night and day when you see which parents actually spend time talking to their kids. I try to make a point to have an actual conversation with my son daily. Not just shallow smalltalk, but actual conversation.
This is a comment from someone who does not have children.
I have kids and I agree with OP.
I get that what I’m saying sounds absolutist and simplistic. I get that there’s lots of influences on kids and peer pressure and whatnot.
But I’m also going by my own experience as a kid. You were a kid too once, yes?
My parents didn’t yell or scream or threaten. They explained. Even as a child I understood why smoking was bad and what damage it did to lungs. By the time I was old enough to consider smoking or have any opportunity to do so, I understood lung cancer, and addiction, and that it’s much easier to start something addictive than to stop. These things had been explained to me openly, without masking the ugliness of cancer or death or addiction.
So when I say TEACH your kids not to smoke, I mean that literally. Don’t preach at them or threaten them or yell at them, because it doesn’t work and kids tune it out. Don’t wait until they’re in middle school to show them the bad side of the world.
You are making up a story that fits what you believe. The other commenter is right, you dont have kids and its very apparent in how you write. Confidently having an opinion and then making up details to suit that opinion is a childish thing to do.
So telling you the FACTUAL truth of my childhood gets rejected because it doesn’t fit your narrative?
I don’t claim every kid is like me. Lots of kids won’t listen to their parents no matter what they say. Lots of kids WILL go find vapes even if you make possession punishable by death. Lots of kids will see someone older/cooler vaping and will forget everything they learned. I don’t claim every kid is like me. I’m saying that if more parents were like mine there’d be a lot less vaping. That’s all.
I simply said you are unqualified to be in this conversation, but you are free to continue giving your opinion.
What you did is make an assumption- that I don’t have kids. An assumption that you have no positive evidence either way on. And thus by your assumption, you claim I am unqualified. But again, this relies on two assumptions-- 1. that I don’t have kids, and 2. that someone who has kids is incapable of understanding the nuances of dealing with kids. I reject both assertions as unprovable.
Okay, I will continue to think it more likely I’m right than wrong, but thanks for the additional info.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” --Aristotle
I also told all that stuff when I was kid, but don’t underestimate the power of youthful arrogance and the influence of an older girl who smokes and is interested in you… I ended up being a smoker for over ten years before I finally quit. Shared my own experiences with my daughter, educated her on all the reasons not to smoke. She still ended up vaping because of youthful arrogance and the influence of an older girl that was interested in her.
You can teach a horse to water but you can’t force it to not vape. Or something.
This right here. My parents explained in all the ways they could. I still ended up smoking. We’re a society and a society should have some responsibility to its kids. What happened to. The idea that it takes a village to raise a child? Some keep trying to heap all of the responsibility on parents when they’re just being asked to forego fruity flavored cancer.
Alive and well and codified into law by the fact that it’s illegal to sell a vape to a child or to buy a vape for a child.
Not asked, demanded. Their right to buy a legal product being taken away. And unlike smoking, there is not yet direct proof that vaping causes cancer. The general consensus is it’s not great for you but it’s significantly better than smoking.
Have you ever been to europe? I don’t think you have any appreciation for how successful the regulations in the US around nicotine addiction have worked.
Same thing is true in the US. Every restaurant used to have a smoking section. The diner where I grew up had ashtrays on every table and a cigarette vending machine by the entrance. And this was in a ‘nice’ town, not some backwater white trash place.
Now I can’t remember the last time I saw a restaurant that allowed smoking. Even among blue collar workers it’s MUCH less prevalent.
Vaping is somewhat more common in the US- I haven’t been to Europe in the last few years (IE since vaping really took off) so I can’t speak with authority on vaping in EU. But of my social circle- a lot more vape marijuana extracts than vape tobacco (marijuana is legal in my state of Connecticut, there’s licensed stores where you can buy weed, vape products, edibles, etc). I really only know two people that actively vape tobacco. One used Jool type pods, and I believe he quit around the time his kid was born. The other you might call an ‘enthusiast’, like she had a fancy computerized vaporizer thingy that ran on a 18650 battery and the tobacco extract came in a big bottle and she’d pour it into these thumb-sized capsules that screw onto the vaporizer gadget.
Thank you! Exactly, this isn’t a problem that should be solved by the government. If parents don’t want their kids vaping, drinking, smoking weed, eating edibles, watching porn, or anything else then parents need to police their own kids. Adults shouldn’t lose access to things just because kids might like them too.
What a self-centered take. Are we all supposed to upvote you for your lack of morality?
“I’m selfish and anything that bothers me or prevents me from doing something is wrong.” Thats what your post reads like. Clearly society needs more people like you?
Defending addiction in the name of freedom is a silly hill to die on.
How about killing off gerrymandering in the name of freedom?
I would love to kill off gerrymandering, because it’s anti-freedom and is only a tool for those in power to contradict the vote of the people. District lines should be drawn by neighborhood, without regard for the resulting vote mix.
And if you think me a Republican you are quite incorrect. I’m a registered Democrat, politically I consider myself liberal-libertarian- I think the married gay couple should have guns to defend their adopted children and their pot farm, knowing that single payer health care is there if they get hurt.
However this means I don’t fit squarely into either the red or the blue camp. I align with Republicans on issues like personal freedom and gun ownership, I align with Democrats on issues like reducing corruption (they’re not great but better than GOP at least) and environmental protection. And I’m quite unhappy with both of them as I think both separately and together they do a piss poor job of representing the interests of the American people.
As for nicotine- I don’t defend addiction, I defend freedom and a person’s right to choose what they put in their own body without excess government interference. If people make bad choices, that is their right and I reject the idea that the government should play ‘nanny state’ and save people from themselves. So for the government to say ‘you can have this flavor vape but not that flavor’ is to me no different than saying ‘you can have vanilla ice cream but not chocolate as it’s too tasty and too likely to make you fat’.
If people are making harmful bad choices, then the solution is to improve education so people grow up with the tools and the practice to make better choices, not to restrict the choices available.
I dunno man. You may be some flavour of libertarian, but not me. I am aware of the libertarian philosophy, and it is particularly an American following.
Freedom has many meanings to many people. But a free society also imposes restrictions on people’s freedom. You just can’t kill someone who annoys you. You need a proper licence in order to drive on public thoroughfares. You can’t take something that doesn’t belong to you, just because you want it. Living in a free society also imposes obligations. Other people must be taken into consideration.
In the case of vapes, and other poisons, it’s not good enough to just yell freedom and allow corporations to to sell dangerous products. Kids consume these products and their health can be affected. In a free society public health considerations will probably impact on people’s freedom. After all, seatbelts continue to save thousands and thousands of lives despite some folks feeling salty about wearing them. At least they are breathing and feeling salty.
None of this will convince you, and that’s ok. I don’t have skin in your game anyway because I don’t live in your country and therefore accept normal restrictions. If I want to live in a society and change the rules, I’ll vote for a person who will do that. Gerrymandering is illegal in my country and fair voting is the norm. I’m also glad that I don’t live in a community where individuals get to decide what rules they should follow on the basis of some nebulous concept of personal freedom.
Thanks for the discussion, by the way.
There’s nothing nebulous here. I offer perhaps you are arguing against a ‘stereotypical American’ who wants ‘muh Freedom!’ and then votes for people who restrict freedom. That is not me.
I like freedom, but sometimes those obligations are part of freedom. There’s a famous quote- “My right to swing my face ends where the other man’s face begins.” I believe this a good underpinning for a free society.
For example if I want to buy an apartment building, I should be able to do that. If I want to store explosives in the basement of that building, I shouldn’t be able to do that- yes it restricts my freedom to use my building’s basement as I see fit, but storing explosives in an apartment also somewhat takes away the freedom of the people living in it to life and safety.
And I can’t take something that doesn’t belong to me, because that takes away the freedom of the person who owns it.
Or take seatbelts. I agree with the regulation that cars are required to have seatbelts, airbags, ABS brakes, and a bunch of other safety equipment. I don’t believe that people should be required to wear seatbelts (or helmets on bikes/motorcycles), because that’s their body their choice. HOWEVER, I also believe that if there are multiple occupants in the car, all should be required to wear seatbelts, because in a crash their body could become a projectile that’d injure the other occupants of the vehicle.
Point is- restrict people from doing things that unreasonably endanger others, but permit people to endanger themselves if they choose.
I’m also STRONGLY against gerrymandering, because that takes away the freedom of the people to choose leaders who accurately represent them and their interests, and instead allows whoever’s drawing the map to determine or significantly increase the election’s outcome, a power that ideally nobody would have. I would argue if you claim to love freedom, but you have no problem with gerrymandering, then you don’t really understand the meaning of freedom and you are not a patriot, you are a parrot repeating what the teevee told you to say.
Anyway- applied here.
I believe if an ADULT chooses to consume a potentially harmful product, knowing the risks of it, they should be allowed to. That is how free society works with things like alcohol, caffeine, and anything else that can be psychologically addictive like marijuana, pornography, sex, video games, TV, lottery tickets, etc. Any attempt to draw a line in here is simple hypocrisy- if you can drink alcohol and trash your liver, but not smoke and trash your lungs, why? Etc.
So if you can get mesquite vapes, but not cherry vapes or menthol vapes, why? Because some asshat regulator said these flavors might appeal more to kids? Even though it’s already illegal to sell them to kids?
No, that is denying the freedom of adults to vape the flavors they want, based on a nebulous idea that kids might get them. That’s not freedom, that’s arbitrary restriction.
I like your nuanced position, but I completely disagree with it, and have already articulated as to why.
I don’t believe that you are a stereotypical American, but the whole “freedom thing” is a stereotypical American thing. I’m Australian and I believe that I have many more freedoms than most Americans. For instance, your country puts traval restrictions on you that we would never tolerate. I can travel to Cuba, or just about any country in the world freely. Same as most other Western countries. But we don’t claim to have special freedom privileges. On the other hand, Australia has one of the most restrictive gun ownership laws in the world. Lots of red tape and lots of regulation. However, by and large nobody minds because the trade-off is a mostly one of safety. The US has a gun homicide rate of about 50 times more than Australia, per capita. The US has 17 times Australia’s gun deaths over all. So, trading off some freedoms has a community benefit and we believe it is worth it. No Australian government has ever won office with a policy of undoing gun laws. Some freedoms are just not worth it. As to your seatbelt example, you deciding not to wear one might impact upon people other than yourself. Someone has to endure the trauma of scraping your body off the road. Someone has to cart your broken arse off to hospital. Someone might have to care for you for years. Possibly forever. Your freedom to not wear a seatbelt will probably impact on others freedom not to have to deal with your silly decision. And so it goes. As I said, the only country in the world who constantly bangs on about freedom, forbids what can be read in so many schools, the right of women to control their bodies, how a president who fails to garner a majority of the popular votes can still get ‘elected’, and so many more anti-freedoms. Your country also imposes it’s will on so many other countries. That’s freedom US style.
To me the Libertarian position is fundamentally selfish. It pretends to be one of freedom, but if you live in a society one must tolerate restrictions, large and small. Or, go live a hermit existence somewhere so whatever folly you choose to celebrate has zero impact upon your fellow citizens.
That’s just my opinion, of course, you are free to disagree.
Adults also get addicted to nicotine. Most developed countries are trying to lower nicotine consumption by prohibiting menthol cigarettes for example. Or by introducing generic design of the packaging, warning labels and so on. The logic is that the substance is harmful and people should not be encouraged to consume it by nice packaging or flavoring. Those are basic public health regulations like limiting where and when alcohol can be sold, how alcohol can be advertised or putting taxes on sugary drinks. I know that people in US believe all regulations infringe on their freedoms but it’s pretty standard thing in civilized countries.