
U.S. Will Move to Ban Flavored E-Cigarettes, Trump Official Says - JumpCrisscross
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-11/trump-to-hold-meeting-on-vaping-after-reports-of-u-s-illness
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SanchoPanda
I spent the better part of a day with high school students recently, public
school, normal kids to my eyes. I observed more than half of them vape
something over that period.

The percentage increase in kids using any tobacco/weed product is really
scary.

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jackspace
Very interesting that the e-cigarette problem, which has actually been rising
only in recent months (they've been around for years now), and involves
roughly 450 people (according the the Wall Street Journal piece:
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-we-know-about-vaping-
relat...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-we-know-about-vaping-related-lung-
illness-11568194202) ), whereas falls from ladders cause about 355 deaths
annually in the U.S. ( [https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-
blog/2017/03/13/ladder-s...](https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-
blog/2017/03/13/ladder-safety-month/) ).

No one is talking about banning or even changing ladders.

Qui bono?

:)

~~~
cgranier
:-)

True, but I don't think ladder-related are growing or have a potential to grow
significantly in the future. Vaping deaths are probably increasing and since
people get addicted to them (and not to ladders) there's an incentive to get
them under control now.

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artie_effim
how about guns while we're at it?

~~~
crazynick4
Would you like a ban on freedom of speech with that? It's just one amendment
away.

~~~
atonse
When a person can murder tens or hundreds of people by just yelling, sure we
can ban free speech.

(to be more serious: the "speech" equivalent of assault weapons would probably
be "hate speech" which is already unlawful)

~~~
crazynick4
Inciting violence is unlawful, "hate speech" is not. What is "hate speech"?
What are "assault weapons"? The right to self-defense is non-negotiable, like
someone already pointed out. You can use a car to ram into a sidewalk full of
civilians. Should we ban cars?

Or maybe we can actually focus on why there are more people that are causing
these mass shootings. If guns are the cause, why didn't we have mass shootings
50 years ago? Guns were even less regulated then.

~~~
claudiawerner
>Or maybe we can actually focus on why there are more people that are causing
these mass shooting

What if the answer comes back to the shortened distance between speech and
action caused by certain kinds of speech via the Internet or other channels?
Similarly, simply saying a right is "non-negotiable" does not make it so. In
fact, all of the rights enumerated by most constitutions of the world _are_
negotiable via parliamentary processes. Is there any reason why the right to
self-defense or the right to (almost) unfettered freedom of speech are non-
negotiable, but other rights (such as the sale and possession of alcohol)
historically have been?

Not to mention that the US has negotiated several times on freedom of speech
(child pornography laws, strengthened laws against assault and threats) and on
the limits of self-defense.

Besides, there is a vast academic literature (in the fields of first amendment
jurisprudence and philosophy) on whether freedom of speech is negotiable. In
fact, some scholars have even found existing justifications for the primacy of
freedom of speech, or a particular right to freedom of speech (as opposed to
the "freedom of action" we implicitly have), such as its claimed inherent
value in truth-finding or its claimed importance in the democratic process to
be lacking, or even non-existent (for example, see Susan Brison's arguments).

Every right granted by a legal document, no matter how highly regarded, should
be and in almost all cases is negotiable. To say otherwise would be, in the
words of J.S. Mill, to cling to dead dogma.

~~~
crazynick4
I'm not sure what you mean by shortened distance between speech and action. I
know it doesn't make it so legally, I suppose I should have said 'in my
opinion, these are non-negotiable'. As far as why, I think that it's because
this is what separates us from other countries. There's plenty of things the
US has done wrong int he past, but the Bill of Rights isn't one of them.

