In a new press release, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) chose to vilify a product that appears to be helping people quit, and avoid, smoking. Their agenda appears to favor power over public health.
Less than a month ago, MRCTV reported that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had begun spreading the lie that electronic cigarettes were “tobacco products” - and, thus, should be “regulated” (i.e. their makers should be legally extorted) by the feds. According to their pretzel non-logic, some of the liquids used for “vaping” contain nicotine, and nicotine is in (among many things) tobacco, so all e-cigarettes are “tobacco products,” QED. The result was an FDA mandate that, by 2018, any e-cig company wishing to release a new flavor of liquid would have to prove it was “beneficial” to the health of the entire population (this is not a joke), and spend $1 million to pass FDA muster.
Evidently, their Orwellian behavior wasn’t crazy enough, so the feds went full Terry Gilliam on us, pulling the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) into the circus. On April 14, the CDC announced this rousing headline: “No Decline In Tobacco Use Since 2011”.
This was, of course, insultingly false, which the CDC itself had already admitted, if one recognizes the distinction between tobacco products and non-tobacco products.
In the same manner that alarmists at the College of East Anglia (UK) have manipulated studies to “support” their unsupportable thesis that mankind is “changing the climate,” the CDC has abused the English language to claim that e-cigarettes are all “tobacco products” when the vast majority are not.
Specifically, in April, the CDC claimed:
“Sixteen percent of high school and 5.3 percent of middle school students were current users of e-cigarettes in 2015, making e-cigarettes the most commonly used tobacco product among youth for the second consecutive year.”
But, we’re not really talking about “tobacco products” here. Claiming that e-cigarettes contain nicotine, and that nicotine is found in, among many things, tobacco, therefore e-cigs are tobacco products is simply misleading, and has been unwittingly belied by another, even more recent, CDC announcement.
On June 9, the CDC issued a press release claiming that smoking among US high school students is at an all-time low, but e-cig use was a “concern.” This would seem to indicate that the CDC does, actually, recognize the obvious difference.
While the agency appears to be stating what vape customers have known for a long time; the correlation of decreased cigarette use during periods of increasing vape popularity seems to be a surprise to the bureaucrats:
“Although current cigarette use decreased significantly from 28 percent in 1991 to 11 percent in 2015, new data from the 2015 survey found that 24 percent of high school students reported using e-cigarettes during the past 30 days.”
So... the number of high school students who smoke has decreased while the number of them using a less dangerous alternative has increased. It’s almost as if there’s a correlation! And, shoot, couldn’t that be a good thing?
Sure, unless you’re a meddlesome bureaucrat who thirsts for power and more cash for your agency. If that’s the case, then you have to overlook that good news, and blur the clear distinction between cigarettes and e-cigs.
Given Americans’ shift away from burning tobacco in paper to inhaling less harmful vapor with far fewer, if any, carcinogenic particulates, the CDC wizards have decided to turn their backs. In fact, they are trying their darndest to regain the rhetorical high ground and keep pushing the fable that e-cigs are dangerous “tobacco products.”
CDC Director Tom Frieden (the same disconnected man who claimed that one could not spread the Ebola virus if he or she was asymptomatic – which is false; it depends on the titer level of those who are asymptomatic) had to make sure he reinforced the misapprehension about e-cigs. In this June 9 release, he said:
“We must continue to invest in programs that help reduce all forms of tobacco use, including e-cigarettes, among youth.”
Repeat a lie enough and it is accepted as truth.
And who is this “we”?
Beyond the financial goal of extracting money from vape companies that want to stay in business, one might wonder why the CDC thugs and FDA pirates are engaging in this dishonorable masquerade.
Why are they taking what should be seen as good news – the fact that fewer people, especially teenagers, are smoking real cigarettes with real tobacco particulates that enter the lungs – and turning it into alarming headlines?
The answer comes in one word: power.
Mr. Frieden and other collectivists are intent on playing fascist economics with any business people who want to sell nicotine-containing products. This is very clear. Nicotine is simply a stimulant. It can become habituating, just like many other stimulants. But it is not tobacco. And the exhibited desire to control this stimulant leads one to suspect that the CDC and FDA are intent on “regulating” other stimulants.
One suspects that caffeine is going to be their next target.
Currently, the FDA cannot manhandle food makers a great deal when it comes to caffeine content. But the writing is on the wall, and people who appreciate freedom and voluntary action -- who recognize that the FDA and CDC are politicized bureaucracies that stand in the way of us handling our own concerns -- can read the graffiti.
In the 1970s, a great author and medical doctor named F. Paul Wilson wrote a short story based on what he saw coming in the field of food “regulation.” It was called “Lipidleggin’” and featured a protagonist trying to score something very dangerous on the black market in a future US. The title ought to give new readers a hint, and the story is terrific reading, because Wilson understood (and still does – his newest release is, as usual, superb) the ramifications of political trends. Government and its functionaries never relent. They are like mold, always hungry, always searching for avenues to expand their dominion and siphon away useable resources.
The CDC and FDA are doing what they were designed to do: steal freedoms and demand payment from innocent people who want to exercise them. Perhaps, we shouldn’t be surprised when the two agencies tag-team to manipulate the language in order to fulfill their domineering missions.