After rewatching and thinking over last night I've come to a couple of thoughts.
First being that we are really looking at a non partisan issue for once. Although if anything happened on the floor we'd quickly see that vanish I'm sure. As a progressive I haven't seen many opportunities to agree with republicans over the last few years and I'm very happy to have been able to do that with Senator Burr.
The biggest oh crap moment I noticed was Mr. Zeller's response to Sen. Burr (paraphrasing) we don't know enough to answer any questions but we know enough to regulate ecigs a into the ground first and then research whatever is left for a few years then we can answer questions.
This is an issue for me. I agree that we should wait for the science to give us an informed decision. However our first regulating attempt should not cause of the exit of the vast majority of this fledgling industry.
Lastly how about the opposition argument be something besides "what about the children?" This argument is valid but not to the point where is the answer to every positive argument made during the hearing. Nicotine juice products aren't currently sold directly to minors in any state that I know of, perhaps some additional age verification on internet based sellers I would be fine with. But currently the children argument is not appropriate, I believe the counter to that argument remains parents and our existing laws that ban tobacco and nicotine sales to minors.
If our community's industry has been making these products available to minors in some deliberate way than I think we can all agree the law has appropriate responses to that situation rather than the regulated destruction of a promising industry of mom and pops non corporate business. This is the small business and innovation that both sides of the aisle have preached as being essential to the American Way.
Rant over
First being that we are really looking at a non partisan issue for once. Although if anything happened on the floor we'd quickly see that vanish I'm sure. As a progressive I haven't seen many opportunities to agree with republicans over the last few years and I'm very happy to have been able to do that with Senator Burr.
The biggest oh crap moment I noticed was Mr. Zeller's response to Sen. Burr (paraphrasing) we don't know enough to answer any questions but we know enough to regulate ecigs a into the ground first and then research whatever is left for a few years then we can answer questions.
This is an issue for me. I agree that we should wait for the science to give us an informed decision. However our first regulating attempt should not cause of the exit of the vast majority of this fledgling industry.
Lastly how about the opposition argument be something besides "what about the children?" This argument is valid but not to the point where is the answer to every positive argument made during the hearing. Nicotine juice products aren't currently sold directly to minors in any state that I know of, perhaps some additional age verification on internet based sellers I would be fine with. But currently the children argument is not appropriate, I believe the counter to that argument remains parents and our existing laws that ban tobacco and nicotine sales to minors.
If our community's industry has been making these products available to minors in some deliberate way than I think we can all agree the law has appropriate responses to that situation rather than the regulated destruction of a promising industry of mom and pops non corporate business. This is the small business and innovation that both sides of the aisle have preached as being essential to the American Way.
Rant over
