{"id":697,"date":"2014-05-19T10:44:31","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T18:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/?p=697"},"modified":"2014-06-17T08:31:34","modified_gmt":"2014-06-17T16:31:34","slug":"old-and-busted-pot-leads-kids-on-to-hard-drugs-new-hotness-vaping-leads-kids-on-to-real-cigarettes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/old-and-busted-pot-leads-kids-on-to-hard-drugs-new-hotness-vaping-leads-kids-on-to-real-cigarettes\/","title":{"rendered":"Old And Busted: Pot Leads Kids On To Hard Drugs;  New Hotness: Vaping Leads Kids On To Real Cigarettes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"TweetButton_button\" style=\"float: right; margin-left: 10px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  data-url=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/old-and-busted-pot-leads-kids-on-to-hard-drugs-new-hotness-vaping-leads-kids-on-to-real-cigarettes\/\" data-text=\"Old And Busted: Pot Leads Kids On To Hard Drugs;%2520New Hotness: Vaping Leads Kids On To Real Cigarettes\" data-lang=\"en\">Tweet<\/a><br \/>\n<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,\"script\",\"twitter-wjs\");<\/script><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8220;it is not fair to our children to ask them to pay a potential price&#8230;for a hypothetical benefit to adult smokers.&#8221; In fact, he said, &#8220;i<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">t is egregious to suggest that we need to have kids do this in order for adults to quit.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is taken from the testimony of Tim McAfee, director of the Office on Smoking and Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.help.senate.gov\/hearings\/hearing\/?id=a0a14829-5056-a032-526d-3bc1bfd96586\" target=\"_blank\">Senate Hearing<\/a> on Thursday May 15th, 2014. \u00a0It seems that among some health experts there is a fear that the use of electronic cigarettes (or e-cigs, or &#8220;vaping&#8221;) will encourage teenagers to smoke actual cigarettes.<\/p>\n<p>All well and good &#8211; I suppose that&#8217;s why we have highly paid people working at places like The Office on Smoking and Health &#8211; to worry about things that hardly anyone else worries about. \u00a0I mean, things have a right to be worried about don&#8217;t they? \u00a0Hmmm&#8230;might have to think about that one. \u00a0<em><strong>Because there are some things that deserve to be worried over that aren&#8217;t getting the attention they deserve; \u00a0Specifically whether the liberaliztion and in some cases outright legalization of marijuana use might be encouraging teenagers to smoke &#8211; \u00a0not cigarettes, but marijuana.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/?p=516%20\" target=\"_blank\">As I have written before<\/a>, I believe there are these two things taking place today, the &#8220;normalization&#8221; of marijuana use and the appearance of E-cigs as a smoking substitute and that they have obvious parrallels; and it is unfathomable to me that nowhere in the media or government do I see anyone connecting the dots. \u00a0Cigarette smoking is considered a public health issue, and deservedly so, though I do take some issue as to where the line is being drawn between regulation\/prohibition and one&#8217;s personal freedom to chose. \u00a0You see, I&#8217;m pro-choice regarding cigarette smoking; \u00a0I&#8217;m also pro-choice regarding marijuana smoking. \u00a0What I do not understand is how all the worrying and hand-wringing about the <em>ever so slight possible harm<\/em> posed to children and teenagers by e-cigs does not in any way carry over into what I believe is the more likely potential harm caused to young people by increased marijuana use. \u00a0I don&#8217;t think anyone is arguing that there is <em>no<\/em> risk to young people associated with relaxed marijuana regulation &#8211; I just don&#8217;t think anyone&#8217;s talking about it at all. \u00a0To the extent there even is a debate, it is primarily whether legalization\/increased use is better for adults or society as a whole. \u00a0Meanwhile there is frequent discussion nationwide over the looming threat posed by e-cigs, a threat so dire they should be banned. \u00a0<em>Banned<\/em> &#8211; instead of being hailed as a benefit to public health, which in my opinion they are. <em>\u00a0Banned <\/em>&#8211; also in my opinion, because they &#8220;look like&#8221; smoking, and are percieived a successful &#8220;end-around&#8221; of smoking regs by smokers. \u00a0And we can&#8217;t let the smokers win.<\/p>\n<p>Since these public health &#8220;debates&#8221; always end up being about the best way for do-gooders to bully adults around because their behavior might possibly wound a precious child, can we at least invite marijuana to the witch trial?<\/p>\n<p>This post inspired by an <a href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/16\/cdc-official-condemns-e-cigarettes-as-an\" target=\"_blank\">article I read at Reason.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tweet &#8220;it is not fair to our children to ask them to pay a potential price&#8230;for a hypothetical benefit to adult smokers.&#8221; In fact, he said, &#8220;it is egregious to suggest that we need to have kids do this in order for adults to quit.&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,4,11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law-order","category-life","category-oldandbusted-newhotness","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":704,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions\/704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}