- Joined
- Dec 8, 2006
- Messages
- 93,933
- Reaction score
- 69,018
- Location
- Colorado
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Libertarian - Left
Nothing personal, but it's drama.
Reality is that legislative "solutions" to human behavioral issues fail more often than they succeed. A legislative act is not a surgeon's scalpel, it is rather a sledge hammer and despite the best of intentions, has more unintended consequences than success.
Humans and society deal with addiction to many substances, including tobacco and alcohol and caffeine, and they manage to do that without "wars" waged by politicians.
Personally, I think a huge mistake was made in allowing vaping to proceed unfettered, but it's hard to tell a way through it, now that the cat is out of the bag. Could they effectively prohibit vaping? Not likely. Some humans are stupid and make very poor health decisions, and all the laws in the world cannot stop that.
It's not drama, but just reality. I don't think that complete prohibition is ever really possible, but law and regulation can help to suppress the numbers.
Humans deal with quite a few addictions, it's true. What are the effects of those addictions? Caffeine won't make people go on a crime spree to get more. Tobacco has health implications, and actually can facilitate a certain level of crime. Alcohol is probably the worst on that list, and things such as DUI deaths are significant. So we have a huge interest in controlling, limiting, and regulating that industry. Once you get past even that, the wheels come off. Heroin and Meth addictions do lead people to violent crimes. It's too addictive too quickly and too damaging to society at large.
Vaping is going to come under regulation too, as it should. And while some people are stupid and make poor decision, if the consequences of those decisions spill over onto other people, then we have an interest to intervene and with government force should the shared consequences be too significant.