Banning substances. The war on drugs. Dare to be different. Just say no.
All of that is bullshit.
Banning substances that human beings enjoy has literally never worked, if by "worked" we mean reducing the number of users of said substance. If by "worked" you mean caused a massive number of people to be incarcerated and have criminal records, then yes, it's worked to perfection.
Remember the Italian Mafia? Remember how in the early 1900's the government banned alcohol, and the Mob then controlled the entire market, which caused many deaths that wouldn't have happened if the alcohol industry was regulated? Not deaths because people drank too much, but deaths due to bad batches of booze, deaths because anytime you deal with the black market and you can't call the police when something happens, you will deal with murder and extortion as well.
To bring it to 2019, that same thing is basically the case with drugs in the United States. Replace the words "Italian Mafia" with "Drug Cartel", and replace "alcohol" with "drugs" and the paragraph doesn't change much. Now, while most of the states have FINALLY come around to the idea that legalizing cannibis is the rational and correct position to have, we still haven't done so on a federal level...AND now they're coming for your e-cigs and vapes.
Sadly, my state of Michigan is the first to ban flavored vape juice. New York is in the midst of doing the same thing. Why is this sad? Because I am a grown man and I like flavored vape juice. Their reasoning is also shitty. "We want to protect the kids and since there's flavor, that might attract some kids to it so therefore, nobody can have it." If that's the case, cigarettes should've been banned a long effing time ago because most people I know who started smoking started before the age of 18. While we're at it, let's ban alcohol again since it worked so well the first time. Most people I know have gotten their buzz on way before the age of 21. Especially all flavored alcohol, since that's clearly the standard of whether or not something is marketed to kids.
Just educate the kids, man. Tell them that smoking/vaping is bad for you, tell them too much alcohol will lead to terrible outcomes, tell them that drugs will turn them into a person they would never want to be. You can tell them all of this. You can ahve age restrictions on said products, and have harsh punishments for those who sell to minors or buy on behalf of minors. But banning the substance itself will surely only push it underground, where MORE kids will have access because the black market doesn't ask for I.D.
Besides, tobacco flavored vape juice is just gross.
Good points!
ReplyDelete