It is impossible to know how many "kids" would be "saved" from
vaping by reducing flavors. No one really knows exactly how many kids are even vaping currently.
I will say this, when my kiddo approached with his smoking habit, I got him vape gear and supplies. He vaped a few years, then quit. He (guilt, IMO) gifted his setups back to me at a time when I REALLY needed to stop, COPD diagnosis was gonna be in about a month.
My ALLOWING my son to vape OMG flavors saved HIM from a life of smoking, and my willingness to accept his HARM REDUCTION and OMG FLAVORED vape equipment saved him from a lifetime of smoking.
Because vaping carries NOWHERE near the harm of smoking, quitting was pretty easy and he didn't reduce nic, just stopped.
HOWEVER, his quitting vaping enabled me to START. I was like, "Here I am dying, and I can't stop smoking, but my KID gave up smoking AND vaping? I suck." Was a sufficient motivation to get ME to stop smoking, and become a vaper.
And, it wasn't the flavorings that did it, either, although having them available certainly helped.
My question is, how many kids who vape for a while may ACTUALLY HELP their own parents to STOP smoking, because that is how my story went.
I could give a rats ... about "age". IMO, it's about maturity and a kid mature enough to disclose his own smoking and request harm reduction is "old" enough to vape.
Children have nothing to do with flavoring. And, I guess I'm a child abuser for letting my child vape. SO be it, FDA.
I'm sure if I sent my "heartwarming" story in to the FDA, they would not feel the way I feel about it.
As far as I'm concerned, I don't much care how teens as a group act out.
And I do find myself agreeing with Kent re: rhetoric and how it is used to control the masses.
What might happen if we ALL rose up and told those who want, above all else CONTROL, where to shove their "labels."
He was my child. Buying him vape equipment was not "abusive." It was actually DAMAGE control from my inability to quit smoking myself, and if the government had been present to arrest me, well so be it. Children should NEVER be used as pawns for government control.
Dilletante teens just out for a good time will have an easier time stopping vaping than they would stopping smoking. A certain number will become vapers for life, and that is also preferable to a lifetime as a smoker. Flavors are irrelevant EXCEPT that if only tobacco and menthol are allowed, I'd imagine more kids would choose smoking, because the novelty of it not tasting like crud would cause them to be more likely to turn to smoking instead.
That IS what the government wants if you ask me--- a new generation of smokers. They are not alarmed about the fact that vaping is RISING in teens. They are dismayed that more teens are not getting addicted to tobacco.
It's all lies. Every last thing is a lie. I'm to the point with this issue that if some kid wanted me to buy them a vape, I'd consider it. Simply because I am so ...... off! I'm not going to, but if I could, I would enter my nearest HS, and supply anyone who wanted it with vape gear. It's a form of activism I'm not going to engage in (I'm not fan of prisons) but IMAGINE if we all began treating the issue as so irrelevant, we no longer needed to mention "kids."
We shouldn't. Those kids are their PARENTS problem, and they get to decide what their kids do, including if they break laws or not.
Unfortunately, the government is dismayed because kids are breaking the WRONG law, not that the law is being broken..
Anna
