FACT: US teens are turning away from vaping in their millions…with a 60 percent drop reported in the last two years.
“Unfortunately, since the FDA has already dedicated itself to a path of moral panic and prohibition, these results are not being trumpeted as a victory.”
What happened when the US Food and Drug Administration authorised just one single vape product for sale on the American market?
There was an outpouring of outrage from critics who chimed in with the same weary and predictable complaint that it would fuel the ‘youth vaping epidemic.’
The pressure group Parents Against Vaping was quick to take to social media to make its views known.
It said: “The FDA must deny ALL flavoured products…for the protection of public health. Big Tobacco is preying upon and addicting millions of kids!”
Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut was just as vocal.
He tweeted: “Greenlighting e-cigarettes—with a teen vaping epidemic underway—seems to raise huge public health dangers. There are safer, sounder ways to end tobacco use and addiction.”
The only small problem is that the USA is NOT in the grip of any such epidemic.
According to the FDA’s own official figures, youth vaping numbers have been on the decline for two years.
Data released jointly by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control showed that teen vaping plunged by more than 40 percent in 2021 compared to the year before.
In the past two years teen vaping rates have dropped by 60 percent, from more than five million to two million.
Acclaimed author and tobacco harm reduction activist David P Forsyth said the figures showed that more young people had quit vaping than those who started or continued combined.
He said: “This was a fad fuelled by hyped publicity of the new forbidden fruit. Luckily it is less harmful or addictive than smoking.”
Anti-vaping activists constantly highlight the spiralling vaping rates amongst school children, but the evidence is against them also.
Official statistics reveal that in the past year, vaping fell from 19.6 percent to 11.3 percent amongst high schoolers and from 4.7 percent to 2.8 percent in middle schools.
Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, said it was ‘absurd’ that the FDA was ‘trying to ban nearly every product currently on the market’ when its own research showed that flavoured vaping products helped adult smokers quit.
He said: “We need to do more to combat youth usage of not just vaping, but tobacco products, cannabis, and alcohol as well.
“All stakeholders in this debate should be pleased to see youth vaping fall for the second year in a row.
“Unfortunately, since the FDA has already dedicated itself to a path of moral panic and prohibition, these results are not being trumpeted as a victory.
“Rather, the FDA is twisting the data to justify its actions over the last month, which have caused millions of adult vapers and thousands of small business owners to fear for their futures.”