Now New York State Wants To Ban Indoor E-Cigarette Use
Monkey see, monkey do. Regulators gonna regulate. That’s what’s happening in New York state where overbearing state legislators are looking to play copycat with New York City’s recent indoor vaping ban and enact statewide rules of their own.
Senator Kemp Hannon who is chairman of the Senate Health Committee can’t wait to get his grubby hands on e-cigarettes:
“We want the same restrictions for e-cigarettes as regular cigarettes.”
At one point the entire sales pitch for banning indoor smoking was an interest in protecting ‘public health’. Armed with methodologically flawed studies on second hand smoke these anti-tobacco nuts ran roughshod over personal liberty and smoker’s rights. But at least they had some semblance of justification for it and they claimed an interest in helping people stop smoking. Now they don’t even bother to pretend they care about helping people stop smoking–one of the primary reasons that E-cigarettes have become so popular so quickly. Now it’s all about control–like Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan) who is backing a statewide ban because she personally “felt nauseous” when someone smoked an E-cigarette in her presence. It’s reached the point where power mad regulators aren’t even trying to pretend that it’s just not about their own opinions and personal preferences.
Rosenthal isn’t shy about being a copycat:
“New York City did it. The rest of New York state needs the same protection.”
Fortunately, not everyone is buying the scam like they did during the height of the ‘second hand smoke’ hysteria. Audrey Silk of Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment sees through the charade:
“This has nothing to do about protecting others. This is about control.”
Unfortunately, all of the ‘usual suspects’ that have made a lot of money and/or gained power advocating against tobacco are anxious to gravy train the same scam with the E-cigarette boom. The American Lung Association is supporting a ban as are many other similar groups. Never mind the fact that a few years ago they were insisting that people needed to stop smoking by any means possible–there’s no room to maintain principles when so much money and control is on the table.