Vaping. It’s been plastered all over the news. What started out as an alternative to cigarette smoking, has turned into a recreational activity popular among adults and teens. The government is considering banning it due to recent hospitalization of people across the United States. 

The most recent news stories have been focused on the eight people who have died from different lung issues. But how many people are killed by cigarettes? Tobacco kills approximately 480,000 people each year. You don’t see any movements to ban cigarettes though. So by the same logic, if the FDA were to move on this ban of only the flavored vape pods, they should also take flavored alcohol and any sort of flavored cigarettes off the market as well. 

What’s the difference? If they are worried about kids getting their hands on vapes then they should make the punishment for anyone caught buying a minor nicotine product more severe, just as they did with alcohol. 

I am not saying that it shouldn’t be regulated more, but an all out ban is absolutely outrageous, due to the fact that the government hasn’t banned the things that have caused millions of deaths worldwide. Vaping should not be banned whatsoever. Banning those things will not stop deadly lung disease from ravaging families. It will only give people addicted to nicotine one less avenue to choose from when it comes to quitting smoking, and it takes away our right as human beings to make decisions for ourselves. 

Why was flavored alcohol created? Because some people do not like the taste of pure alcohol. Why were flavored cigarettes added to the market? Because people didn’t like the taste of straight tobacco. See where I’m going with this? 

The hypocrisy in this possible ban is atrocious. I do believe that more research should be conducted, and more regulations be put in place to make this a safer alternative or hobby for the population. The state of Michigan has executed an all out ban on any e-cigarette device, and guess how that’s going. People are just finding illegal ways to get them, criminalizing something that is by comparison less harmful than cigarettes. 

The vape doesn’t combust like cigarettes do, leaving less damage to your lungs, and there are no second hand effects. Out of the 480,000 people that die each year from smoking in the United States, 41,000 of those deaths are caused by the people around them who choose this. 41,000 people who die from smoking involuntary. No one dies from vaping involuntarily. 

Actually, no one dies from vaping very much at all. The number 480,000 is just an approximate death toll. I can count on two hands how many times vaping has been fatal. Any sane person can agree that vaping is one thousand percent the better alternative when it comes to smoking either vapes or cigarettes. I’d love to see no one at all smoke, and everyone in the United States quit every form of smoking because it would be healthier for all of us, but that’s just unrealistic. So, no, vaping should not be banned in the United States.