It used to be that public health was focused on the health of the public, which meant basic sanitation, medical care and so forth. An expanded definition would include education about nutrition and prevention of disease though vaccinations and public education. Today, public health means pointless virtue signalling from the ruling class over things that have little to do with public health. The news brings word that New Jersey’s governor is looking to tax e-cigarettes.
Cash-strapped New Jersey is leading the charge against e-cigarettes, with Governor Chris Christie and state legislators proposing high taxes that could propel sales into the black market and diminish the state’s tax intake.
Fox News reports that the booming, currently still unregulated e-cigarette industry is enticing a number of states to propose new taxes to cover for the sales. While the health effects of e-cigarettes are still not fully known, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim that e-cigarettes have “far fewer of the toxins found in smoke compared to traditional cigarettes,” and many individuals suggest that they have been able to stop smoking cigarettes by switching to this nicotine-providing alternative. One study found that e-cigarettes are as effective as nicotine patches in helping smokers quit.
Lots of people who have switched to the e-cigarettes and then quit using nicotine entirely. Even heavy smokers, who have tried all of the other remedies have found relief through vaping. They don’t start vaping in order to quit nicotine, but that is a happy result of making the switch. it turns out to be an effective way to break the habit, because it first eliminates the link between the hundreds of chemicals in cigarettes and the nicotine. This seems to make quitting less difficult.
You would think that would be welcomed news by the anti-smoking people, but you would be wrong. They never gave a damn about the health of smokers. The people in these movements just like pushing people around. The advent of e-cigarettes is now making that plain. Instead of encouraging harm reduction, they are trying to ban this new gadget. New York City also banned e-cigs, which is hilarious as it is impossible to enforce, as the user can do it undetected with little effort.
Of course, the politicians just want the money. The hilarious part is this whole thing is it pits the busybodies against the legal plunder crowd. The anti-pleasure fanatics are out trying to ban the sale of cigarettes, while the blood suckers in every state capital are trying to figure out how to make more money from the sale of cigarettes. One side is quietly encouraging vice in order to tax it, while the other side loudly condemns, while quietly happy to have people to lecture.
A group of state attorneys general are asking the nation’s top pharmacy chains to follow rival CVS and stop selling tobacco products.
The prosecutors sent letters to Walgreens (WAG, Fortune 500) and Rite-Aid (RAD, Fortune 500) as well as three other retailers with pharmacies in their stores — Wal-Mart Stores (WMT, Fortune 500) as well as grocers Kroger (KR, Fortune 500) and Safeway (SWY, Fortune 500).
“There is a contradiction in having these dangerous and devastating tobacco products on the shelves of a retail chain that services health care needs,” the AGs wrote.
The push is being made by a bipartisan group of prosecutors, led by New York AG Eric Schneiderman and Ohio AG Mike DeWine, from 26 other states and territories.
The funny part is watching the pols struggle to come up with a way to tax something that may be impossible to tax. There are millions of sites selling these things. Taxing cigarettes is relatively easy. The distributors are licensed by the states and put a tax man on-site. Taxing bits of metal that can be shipped from anywhere on the planet for pennies is a different matter. You could tax nicotine at the manufacturer, but then you raise prices of all sorts of other goods. Nicotine is used in pesticide, for example, in the organic food business. There’s some irony.