Jump to full article: New York Post, 2009-10-16
Author: JEFF STIER
Intro: THE City Council this week voted 46-1 to ban many flavorings in a variety of tobacco products, and Mayor Bloomberg is likely to sign it into law. Speaker Christine Quinn justified it as an effort to protect children -- but the main effect will be to make it harder for adult smokers to quit.
The ban also covers many flavors of snus -- a smokeless, and thus far less harmful, tobacco.
. . .
But sales of all tobacco products to minors are already illegal. The city should enforce the law on the books rather than stymie adults' switch to a less harmful product.
Ironically, the city ban exempts flavored hookah tobacco and menthol -- both of which are popular among younger tobacco users and which, unlike the banned flavored snus, have no redeeming public-health value. They certainly don't help people quit cigarettes.
New York City is not alone in banning the wrong products. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal recently called for a ban on e-cigarettes. . . .
The federal government is getting into the act as well. The Food and Drug Administration, now tasked with regulating tobacco, in July warned about tiny levels of carcinogens in e-cigarettes, telling smokers to stay away -- in effect telling them to stick with deadly cigarettes.
These government actions will do nothing to protect kids. The only effect is to promote the most dangerous form of tobacco use, smoking cigarettes.
If the advocates get their way, the only thing addicted smokers will be able to buy are mostly ineffective nicotine gums and patches -- and, of course, cigarettes.
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