Our View

All the smoke and mirrors surrounding vaping

It didn’t take long for our state politicians to jump all over this e-cigarette crisis like a swarm of bees, and already one lawmaker is proposing jacking up the socalled “sin taxes” as his so-called solution to curbing the use among young vapers.

Oh, by the way, Senate President Pro Tempore Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, also wants to bar e-cigarettes in places where traditional cigarettes are prohibited as if that is going to stop vapers from acquiring these now labeled dangerous e-cigarette products.

The Senate president is leading the charge by proposing legislation to give fellow politicians a so-called “starting point” to address the rising popularity of e-cigarette use.

Remember folks, vaping was originally promoted as the “safe” alternative to smoking cigarettes and tobacco products that at one time, many years ago, was a popular pastime among men and women.

Tobacco’s association with diseases, such as deadly cancer, led to tough legislation and taxation as means of doing what politicians are now proposing to do with electronic cigarettes.

Meanwhile, we now have marijuana, a drug once considered illegal, being embraced as a means of treating certain diseases and there is movement to allow the use of “pot” for simple recreational use similar to tobacco and e-cigarettes.

Let’s just say that if marijuana is approved for recreational use, a few years from now we will begin to hear all sorts of horror stories about the dangers of marijuana.

What’s going to happen then? Are politicians, like Sen.

Hendren going to once again propose higher “sin taxes” and call for tougher legislation that will restrict the use of “pot”?

This now vaping craze, especially among young people, is proving to be seriously harmful, especially among young vapers who are experiencing dangerous lung damage and even death.

Along with tobacco stores came a slew of e-cigarette shops with entrepreneurs raking in tons of money on all sorts of e-cigarette products but now it appears they too will fade away as political overseers find ways to tax them to the point vapers can’t afford them as well as slap tough restrictions on where they can be purchased and used.

It seems when the political and social hammer fell on tobacco vaping became the great alternative and now we’re discovering that vaping may just be more dangerous than smoking a cigarette. For heaven’s sakes who would of thought of such?

Without calling an expensive special session of the Legislature, Hendren’s opportunity to get legislation passed will possible be in April when lawmakers convene for the sole purpose of budgetary matters.

The next regular session where such legislation would be considered will be in 2021.

What Hendren is proposing is legislation that would tax vaping products at the same level as non-cigarette tobacco products. Right now cigarettes are taxed at $1.15 per pack; other tobacco products are taxed at a whopping 68% of the manufacture’s invoiced selling price before any discounts.

Currently, e-cigarettes carry only the standard sales tax.

Bear in mind, current medical marijuana is also taxed giving state coffers a sizable financial boost, and if pot is approved for recreational use that too will be taxed appropriately.

Imposing sky-high taxes on these products is not the sole solution to the serious health problems they cause and electronic cigarettes should have never been touted as the “safe” alternative to tobacco. And we predict, as time will tell, recreational marijuana will also be found to cause a multitude of problems, as if we already don’t know that.