The media is trumping up a fake national health crisis, but the only thing vaping poses an existential threat to the tobacco industry’s business model. //

The Trump administration last week announced plans to ban most flavored e-cigarettes. New York just announced an emergency order to ban flavored vaping. A sixth person has died from vaping-related lung disease, according to the alarmists in news media. //

A few weeks ago, my son shared with me that his public school anti-drug program focused almost entirely on discouraging vaping. That’s right, our leaders have prioritized the “threat” of vaping over heroin, cocaine, alcohol, and smoking. //

In contrast to the six deaths now linked to vaping, cigarette-related illnesses account for 480,000 deaths every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Tobacco kills almost half a million Americans per year. In a typical month in America, smoking kills approximately as many Americans as died in the entire length of the Vietnam War.

Vaping, we are told, is not an overall benefit to public health because it draws its customers from non-smokers. This is a lie. The real outcry is a result of the fact that vaping poses an existential threat to the tobacco industry’s business model. Sales of cigarettes declined 11.2 percent in May 2019. This follows 18 consecutive months of decline in tobacco sales.

In the future, these declines in cigarette purchases will translate directly to a decline in deaths. An 11.2 percent decline in smoking sales means that nearly 500,000 deaths-per-year figure could, in the years to come, also decline as fewer smokers introduce tobacco into their lungs. //

On average, local governments collect $1.73 per pack of cigarettes on top of the approximately $1.00 per pack the federal government collects. This translates to billions of dollars in tax revenue that federal, state, and local governments have come to depend upon. In theory, taxes accomplish the public good of discouraging people from smoking. But in practice, the hysteria over vaping shows our leaders care more about collecting taxes than they do about the health and well-being of their fellow Americans laboring under the self-destructive addiction of cigarettes. //

Is vaping safe? Compared to breathing fresh oxygen and eating kale round-the-clock, probably not. But it doesn’t need to be safer than kale. It needs to be safer than smoking. Since vaping is causing a rapid, voluntary decline and perhaps eradication of the dangerous habit of smoking tobacco, panic is being stoked to protect big tobacco.