Consumer Freedom Lounge

Smoking poses well-known health risks. Smoking is habit-forming and isn’t healthy, and kids shouldn’t smoke. But government regulators have gone well beyond reasonable measures to discourage smoking and protect nonsmokers, and they are now waging all-out war on smokers. That’s wrong. Federal, state, and local government in the United States have used excise taxes, smoking bans, and other regulations in an attempt discourage cigarette use, but those are having little effect on smoking rates.

Many anti-smoking activists attack alternatives that could save smokers lives. While going cold turkey or using nicotine replacement therapies work for some smokers, they don’t work for all. Another option is to reduce the harm by shifting to less-hazardous products that provide similar enjoyment such as “snus,” heat-not-burn tobacco, or e-cigarettes. Electronic cigarettes and vaporized nicotine products (VNPs) offer many advantages to current tobacco smokers: They eliminate the dangerous chemicals and toxins found in tobacco smoke, and thus are great products to reduce the harm current tobacco smokers face. Unfortunately, opponents want to impose overzealous regulation and excessive taxation on these products even though they are a proven harm reduction tool.

After the repeal of Prohibition, state governments were granted explicit authority to regulate alcohol sales and distribution within their own borders through Section 2 of the 21st Amendment. Today alcohol products (beer, wine, and spirits) are some of the most heavily regulated and taxed consumer products in the United States. Governments have imposed significant taxes on alcohol products as well as imposing a three-tiered distribution system, blue laws, and other regulations.