AMLO: vaping bad, cigarettes good
Mexico bans a less harmful alternative to cigarettes, because reasons.
I can see the logic in banning cigarettes and e-cigarettes. I can see the logic in banning tobacco cigarettes while keeping e-cigarettes legal. I’m not saying I’d agree with either of these decisions - though sometimes I wonder about the latter - but I can at least understand why you’d propose it.
I’m darned if I can understand any logic behind this one, aside from caving in to media hysteria, and an increasingly authoritarian populist leader (left-wing, in this case) throwing his weight around:
The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (popularly known by his initials AMLO), signed a decree on Tuesday that prohibits the “circulation and marketing” of electronic cigarettes or vaping devices as well as tobacco heaters. Combined with the passing of a General Import and Export Tax Law earlier this month, these products are now banned from being imported and sold within the country.
The decision also follows a maximum health alert issued by the country’s federal health risks commission, which declared that all alternative tobacco smoking products can cause major illness. Federal and local authorities have launched several campaigns to locate and seize these devices in at least a dozen states.
[…]
Although the legal market for vaping products has grown in the country, it still represents a tiny fraction compared to that of conventional cigarettes. Philip Morris International, one of the marketers of these alternatives, went from having 35,000 to nearly 42,000 users of tobacco heaters. According to official government estimates, in the last five years the tobacco industry increased its sales from about 846 to 1.2 billion pesos (about $64 million) a year.
It’s for the children, of course:
One of the arguments used to ban all types of vaporizer devices, whether with or without nicotine, is that various flavorings are used to “hook children and adolescents who will later be consumers of other drugs,” Senator Lilia Valdez said before the bill’s approval.
In debating the ban, lawmakers such as Senator Lilia Valdez expressed concern that the various flavorings used in vaping devices “are used to hook children and adolescents” who will then become consumers of other drugs.
Is vaping good for you? God, no. If you don’t already do it I beseech you not to start.
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