1. It's not an article. Articles should be fair and balanced. It's an editorial. Editorials advance a position and support it. Editorials are opinion.
2. No matter whether these are ultimately ruled drugs/drug delivery devices or tobacco products, the FDA will regulate them. Either way, the FDA has final authority. It's just that the drug route is more involved at the moment. But either route could be a dead end, thanks to the recent legislation from Congress and signed into law. Any new product like these has massive, almost insurmountable, hurdles to get over.
3. These do need regulation. The out-of-control sale of products containing nicotine is not a supportable position. Surely no one can advocate that.
4. Editorial writers can base parts of an opinion on incorrect facts. That's the case here with the reference to diethylene glycol in many e-cigs. But rest assured that those advocating this opinion are not mindless idiots, pawns for Big Tobacco or Big Pharma, or dolts who write without thinking. This reflects an opinion many will hold and is the agreed-upon conclusion of an editorial board of highly intelligent people. We can hope that an organization like CASAA becomes a clearinghouse for facts on which future editorials are based, so incorrect allegations aren't printed or spoken as truth.
#1: Does it matter that it's an "editorial" and not an "article"? It sounds like you're just being nitpicky for the sake of being nitpicky; the point of it is negative and everyone understands that.
#2: The FDA has authority by brute force alone; not because they have any Constitutional jurisdiction or even any right to exist. Their ability to ban certain products from the public is, quite frankly, illegal.
#3: Wrong. I can and do advocate just that, because it's not the federal government's job to do anything about it. According to the Constitution, the federal government exists for a small number of reasons and regulating anything of that nature is not in the rulebook. We don't need the government to babysit us. If a company makes a bad product, let the people sue them and put them out of business; that's the way it's supposed to work. But now, since we have the Almighty FDA to give "approval", companies who are sued can say "well, we had FDA approval, nyah nyah nyah" and can use that as part of their defense in court. The FDA has also been known to PROTECT manufacturers who make bad products and even change their rules to accomodate them so they don't get in too much trouble with the public.
Us needing the federal government to oversee what we eat and drink to the extent of banning certain products from being used by consenting adults is a bunch of crap. The FDA doesn't do its job, it's corrupted, and we simply do not need it. I'm not in favor of government sanctioned bodies that make regulations that masquerade as laws, as the FDA, TSA, DHS, etc. tend to do without any input from the public whatsoever. They're run by unelected officials that have next to no fear of getting fired and absolutely no fear of getting voted out of office.
So, I fail to see how the government regulating products that contain nicotine benefits anyone, be it the public or anyone here on this forum.
Not only that, but the pharmaceutical companies have complete and utter immunity when it comes to the swine flu vaccine if the federal government deems it to be so; if it messes you up, tough ****, thanks to the 2006 PREP Act in Congress. Once the PREP Act is invoked by the Secretary of the DHHS, if you take the swine flu vaccine and it makes you end up like this girl:
YouTube - Beautiful Cheerleader Develops Dystonia After Receiving Vaccine
... you're just out of luck. Sorry, but that's just a little TOO much power for my taste and I'll choose death by swine flu before risking ending up like that because the vaccine is what nanny government tells me is good for me (especially when Obama's daughters are basically forbidden vaccination).
Having the federal government involved in these things does nothing but give manufacturers excuses to have bad products on the market, simply because they paid to have their products "approved" and it's not in our best interests to allow them to be directly involved in our food or our health care.
#4: Any editorial writer found to be intentionally lying about the facts in an editorial should be fired. Simple as that. Anything else is propaganda intended to mislead and deceive the public.
This reflects an opinion many will hold and is the agreed-upon conclusion of an editorial board of highly intelligent people.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, what??? An editorial board of
highly intelligent people..?? This editorial is what passes for "highly intelligent"??? This editorial was not an opinion piece; it was an agenda piece made to sound like an opinion piece because even though the one(s) who wrote it may not like e-cigarettes, I guarantee it's for reasons completely un-related to the contents of the editorial. The major newspapers of the United States are owned by a small group of people with a similar mindset and it's their agenda that's being pushed here, not any one person's.
