<p>Health professionals are investigating why, suddenly, there&#8217;s a rash of lung illnesses related to the use of e-cigs and vaping devices. It&#8217;s almost assuredly linked to black market devices and juice pods tampered with by the users.</p>
<p>Progressives won&#8217;t let this crisis go to waste, combining concern over the illnesses along with recent data suggesting an uptick in teen vaping, to push for nonsensical bans. These efforts reveal a deep level of hypocrisy, and ultimately, will lead to more deadly habits.</p>
<p>When it comes to &#8220;harm reduction&#8221; strategies, progressive politicians and talking heads promote heroin-injection sites. Some call these illegal spaces &#8220;safe injection sites&#8221; because they&#8217;re monitored by a health professional to treat addicts at risk of overdose, but the fact that they need a nurse or doctor present literally means they&#8217;re not all that safe. This is exactly why the Trump administration has warned cities like Seattle, for example, to stay away from the addiction-enabling programs.</p>
<p>When the Trump administration warned Seattle to stay away from the addiction-enabling programs, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan&#8217;s office decried, to the Seattle Times, the effort &#8220;to block a harm-reduction strategy to the opioid epidemic.&#8221;</p>
<p>Seattle is not alone, of course. Philadelphia is in a legal battle with the feds over the sites, and San Francisco Democrat Sen. Scott Wiener is pushing a bill to bring the heroin dens to California.</p>
<p>Harm reduction is where it&#8217;s at for these progressives!</p>
<p>Yet, when it comes to e-cigarettes and vaping, suddenly, they want bans. San Francisco banned the sale of e-cigarettes. Durkan immediately supported the &#8220;bold&#8221; move, saying <a href="https://mynorthwest.com/1434986/rantz-jenny-durkan-e-cigarettes-injection-sites/?">it&#8217;s time to consider banning them</a> in Seattle. Philadelphia has long sought regulations on the devices, too.</p>
<p>What happened to the Left&#8217;s love affair with harm reduction strategies? E-cigarettes and vaping nicotine is a popular tool used for smoking cessation. Cigarette consumption is <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/electronic-cigarettes-good-news-bad-news-2016072510010">considerably more dangerous</a> than e-cigarettes. No one is saying they’re categorically safe; they&#8217;re saying it&#8217;s safer. It&#8217;s a similar argument progressives use when talking about heroin injection sites – only, in this case, we&#8217;re talking about a lawful-for-now device.</p>
<p>But what about the children? King County Executive Dow Constatine in Washington state <a href="https://www.kingcounty.gov/elected/executive/constantine/news/release/2019/September/11-vaping-regulations.aspx">declared</a> &#8220;urgent action&#8221; needed to save the children! Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer <a href="https://apnews.com/642945b75fad4b64b651fb229db8eaf1">accused</a> e-flavor makers of purposefully trying to &#8220;hook children on nicotine.&#8221; Democrats aren&#8217;t alone. President Trump, along with the First Lady, used kids&#8217; health as an argument to ban e-cig flavors – except if, inexplicably, they&#8217;re tobacco flavored. Kids are often used as props in these debates. These bans are ludicrous.</p>
<p>Children are already banned from purchasing e-cig and vaping products. If you want to get them to stop using them, increase enforcement on shops that are illegally selling devices and increase funding to education programs – mimicking the very same ones that caused a decrease in smoking. And there&#8217;s even reason to believe that a ban like this will drive child-vapers back to cigarettes. If they&#8217;re going to consume one of these products, wouldn&#8217;t we rather have it be an e-cigarette, where they cut their exposure to toxic chemicals associated with burning tobacco?</p>
<p>The bigger unintended consequence of this kind of ban is that it likely brings smokers back to cigarettes. Adults overwhelmingly prefer the &#8220;kid-friendly&#8221; flavors than the tobacco one. Couldn&#8217;t this just push adults back to cigarettes? I thought this was about health.</p>
<p><i>Jason Rantz is a Seattle-based talk show host heard weekday afternoons from 3-6 p.m.on KTTH 770 AM (subscribe to the podcast <a href="http://mynorthwest.com/category/podcasts/#AM770KTTH">here</a>). He’s a frequent guest on FOX News and occasional fill-in host for the Ben Shapiro Show. Follow Jason on Twitter @JasonRantz. </i></p>

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RANTZ: Progressives Ditch ‘Harm Reduction’ Support So They Can Ban Vaping Products