ban on menthol
This is a long time debate in this country. The smokers vs. the non smokers. The government will be forbidding people to smoke. If you don’t like smoking, that’s fine. If you do, that’s fine too. Where it becomes an issue is, do you want the government to tell you that you can’t? Is this just one more thing the government is taking control of? This idea may seem extreme, but it’s not. This is the FDA. The FDA wants a ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. This is nothing more than cigarette prohibition.
“The proposed rules would help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers and help adult smokers quit,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. “Additionally, the proposed rules represent an important step to advance health equity by significantly reducing tobacco-related health disparities.”
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-proposes-rules-prohibiting-menthol-cigarettes-and-flavored-cigars-prevent-youth-initiation
The FDA is not helping people to do anything, they are forcing them. There is a clear difference. It is just one more thing, adding to the long list of things, the government has taken control. They are concerned for kids? This same government who is allowing kids to mutilate their bodies. This is the same government that is now teaching very very young children about sex.
the fda
The FDA, in particular, did a bang up job with Covid. Many were furious with the regulations and shutdowns over Covid. This is just another forced ban onto the people.
June 17, 2022: FDA authorizes Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccines for children down to 6 months of age. View press release and press conferenceExternal Link Disclaimer.
https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/counterterrorism-and-emerging-threats/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Authorizes Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccines for Children Down to 6 Months of Age
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-authorizes-moderna-and-pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccines-children
Do you see the language the FDA is using? The FDA is authorizing. The FDA is allowing. Few are happy with our governments response to the pandemic. People were forced to stay home. People were forced into getting vaccines and wearing masks. Government interference is just that, government interference. If they get to do it once, they will continue. The FDA’s ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, is just another example of their control over the people.
stopping children from smoking
This is an issue for a very long time. How do you stop children from smoking? Many don’t like my response, but you can’t. If kids want to smoke, they will find a way. I grew up in an era where as a kid you were able to go into a store and say you were buying them for your mom and boom, you got a pack of cigarettes. I could be wrong, but I believe in my early teens you were supposed to be 13 to buy cigarettes. There were no identifications. A pack of cigarettes was 50 or 55 cents. It was easy. I started smoking early and smoked menthol.
My friends and I had to sneak them. At school we didn’t, we had smoking area. At outside games we went under the bleachers. This was so parents wouldn’t see us. We would go for evening walks or bike rides to smoke. Parents sometimes suspected. We would get grounded or punished. Guess what? It didn’t stop us from smoking. If a kid wants to smoke they will find a way.
raising the age
This is almost a joke. The government has made kids even more sneaky. I think, in my state, the age went to 16, then 18, then 21, then 21, but you need to look 30. That last one is the most ridiculous. You need to look 30? This is using the opinion of the clerk. When the age was raised to 18, they required identification. Why do you need to look 30 when you are already looking at my identification. These rules are ridiculous and have stopped nothing.
Kids get people, friends and or family, to buy cigarettes for them. Some say, “well they can’t, it’s illegal.” Really? It would be very difficult to prove and if they could, how many do you know arrested from buying cigarettes? Why? You can’t prove it, that’s why. Does being the age of 21 stop kids from drinking? No! That one might be a little more difficult for kids, but it’s still doable.
As an adult the identification requirement really made me angry at times. I didn’t always carry my identification on me. If I did happen to have it, now I’m holding up the line digging for it in my purse. I was 40 years old, and digging through my purse to prove I was old enough to buy a pack of cigarettes. I, at 40, didn’t want to look like I was 90, but I hope I looked like an adult.
here come the restrictions
Now the government isn’t happy because their plan was a failure. So they started imposing restrictions. You know, like they did with Covid. Why not? They were allowed to put restrictions on people for smoking, why not the flu too? Ok, so it was outside public spaces that had restrictions. Now my friends and I were back to sneaking cigarettes under the bleachers at our kids games. Ridiculous, now we are teaching our children how to sneak. Guess what? The restrictions did not stop us.
When that didn’t work, it was no smoking on some property. Schools, hospitals, and government property are 3 that come to mind. It was so bad, that at our kids’ games, we couldn’t even smoke in our own vehicle. I repeat, in our own vehicles.
From there it increased to just about everywhere. No place where people dine, we were ok with that one. We used to have our own area for that though. No bars was a bit of a head shaker. All the people in bars should be over 21, again we had our own area. There were restrictions in cities.
Then restrictions where you live came into play. Cities and towns is one thing, but I’m talking about your actual residence. If you rent, you can’t smoke. Who pays for your rent? Yet, you can’t smoke where you pay to live? Only the people who own their own homes were allowed to smoke? You could no longer smoke outside or inside. Guess what? It did not stop people from smoking.
this is not new
My Grandmother was born in 1915. She use to tell stories from her life as a child. I could listen to her for hours. She had 11 siblings. Guess what? They smoked. Gram and her siblings didn’t have cigarettes. They smoked what ever they could get their hands on. Corn silk seemed to be popular with her generation. They sometimes got caught. They would get their butts beat. Guess what? It didn’t stop them from smoking.
if you smoke, your kids will
That was a popular theory for quite some time. This is just another myth. I know many of my friends that their parents did not smoke, but their children did. My own grandmother and grandfather smoked. My parents did not. I did. Believe me when I tell you, they absolutely tried to stop me. They were fighting a losing battle. I know many of my friends that their parents did smoke and their children never did. There was not the peer pressure to smoke that everyone talked about. It is a myth that if you are around people that smoke, you will too. I could have cared less if my friends smoked or not. It was their choice. This is now a choice the government feels they can take from me.
smoking dangers
I knew the dangers of smoking. I am not sure how anyone would make it through life without knowing the dangers of smoking. Smoking is not something I would encourage. It is extremely difficult to quit. I wish I had never started. The fact remains is, I did. There is no point in suing the cigarette manufacturers. They didn’t force me to buy the cigarettes or force me to smoke them.
The cute Joe Camel or the Marlboro Man did not encourage me to smoke. I did not smoke either one of those brands. That was another gimmick for government control. Warning labels on the packs, another gimmick. Every smoker saw the warning label on the pack as they took out a cigarette to smoke. I highly doubt that ridiculous warning label stopped anyone from lighting up.
Why does the government get to tell me as an adult that I can’t smoke? All adults absolutely know the dangers of smoking. I would think most children know also, the dangers of smoking.
vaping
I am no longer a smoker. Why? Because I started vaping. I vaped for maybe 6 years. I started vaping and quit smoking. It made quitting smoking a cinch. I loved vaping. I first started with bought menthol flavored nicotine vape juice. That’s how I quit smoking. I smoked menthol and replaced it with menthol vape juice. I will admit that off and on I would smoke a cigarette. After vaping, cigarettes tasted terrible. My doctor was thrilled when I started vaping. She was even more thrilled when I told her I quit smoking.
I soon realized that flavored vape juice was great. Then I started making my own. I could make any flavor I wanted and I gradually decreased the amount of nicotine. I did always have menthol on hand. It was my favorite. Vaping was great for me.
vape nazi’s
Then came the vape Nazi’s. People acted that if you vaped near them, you would kill them. Now like cigarettes, cigars, and pipes, vaping is banned. And it continued until you could no longer vape anywhere, even outside. These people do not understand vaping at all, but they once again, forced people into not using vapes. Guess what? It didn’t work.
So they did to vapes the same thing they did to cigarettes. They taxed the hell out of them. That’s what a liberal government does. It is the answer to everything. Tax the hell out of people and give it back to the poor, the liberal’s moto. Then came the identification requirement. And that story continues just like the cigarettes.
capitalism
Do you have any idea how big the vape industry became? Wow! Let me tell you. In Florida, there was a vape shop on every block. Those were private owned mom and pop smoke shops. Everyday people out to work to try and better themselves. It’s what we have here in America. Capitalism allows individuals to have their own business and try and make it successful.
Of course the government had no involvement. They had to figure out a way to get involved. They needed to tax them. The government taxed them to death. Many smoke shops had to close. The government forced people out of their businesses. People couldn’t afford to stay in business because of the government.
Then came the dangers
Wow did the government hit that one hard. They out did themselves with propaganda on vaping. They especially targeted kids. According to the government, people who vape were dropping like flies. Popcorn lung replace lung cancer as the hazard. The government decided for us that people were not to vape. The mainstream media, that now works for the government, slammed people with ads and info on how vaping is going to kill everyone. It was completely ridiculous.
Kids were dying and in astronomical numbers. Everyone was getting popcorn lung. This was the crisis of the century until Covid hit. First was regulations on age and identification. Then it wasn’t allowed anywhere. They taxed the hell out of it. Then went after specific styles of vapes and flavors. They insisted flavors target children. Let me tell you from someone who loved to vape. Adults love those flavors. But, once again, the government comes in and decides for everyone what they are allowed to have.
gov’t interference
I have made the comparison to Covid several times. Covid hit and the government came in and ordered people how to live. You can’t work. You can’t go outside without a mask. They said no one was allowed to go back to work without the vaccine. They closed schools. Children needed to be masked. This was our government that made these decisions for us. We will be paying for those horrible decisions for years to come.
I don’t care whether you are a anti-smoker or vaper. The point is the government control. If you are one of the people who is upset about the governments control over Covid, you should be equally upset over cigarettes. If you think it’s ok sometimes and not others, based on your own opinion, you’re a hypocrite or a liberal. They government has no right to tell grown people they can’t smoke. They have gone one farther with, you can smoke, but only what we will authorize you to smoke. You think adults shouldn’t be forced into vaccines? Government control is government control. They don’t stop at one thing. We lose more and more rights. You must speak up. This should not be allowed.
It isn’t just the comparison with the control. It is the fear. They put fear into people who smoke. They did the same with vaping. And everyone knows the fear the used with Covid. And who spread that fear? The media, for the government, that’s who.
for our benefit
I no longer vape or smoke. I would not have been able to quit smoking, if not for my vape. My vape made it easy to quit smoking. Instead of making it impossible for people to vape and driving people out of their businesses, the government could have use it as a way to get people to quit smoking. Our government does not care about our health. They care about control. They use fear as a way to keep control. I am not the only person to use vapes to quit smoking. I personally know several people who switched from smoking to vapes.
a final note
I said that I loved vaping. I absolutely did. The reason I quit smoking was the expense. The government and their taxes sending the prices through the roof is why I switched to vapes. I had to quit vaping for the same reason. The government made it completely unaffordable with taxes. And the government is making a fortune off of cigarettes and vapes. And now that they figured out a way to tax vapes, guess what? You don’t hear anything about them anymore. There are no grotesque pics on the news everyday. The government got their way and they taxed the hell out of them. It was never a gateway to drugs, that’s just another fear instilled by our government.
If you don’t like smoking, fine. I know many people who hate it. Whether it’s cigarettes or vapes, people walk by you, looking at you like you’re a freak or monster. If you are one of those people, I hope you remember, it’s just one more thing the government wants to control. Don’t be a hypocrite. I know people who actually say, “good, cigarettes kill you.” That is not the point. As an adult, if I choose to smoke, I’ll smoke. The government won’t stop it.
