Dr. Gilbert Ross authored an article for The New York Observer about New York Councilman Costa Constantinides’s proposal to ban flavored e-cigarettes and e-liquids. He show how, if passed, that ordinance would have a detrimental effect on smokers that have given up cigarettes in favor of vapor products.
This Thursday, our city’s legislators will discuss a proposal banning flavored nicotine liquids and flavorings said to be “kid-friendly” for e-cigarettes and related vapor products. The enactment of such a ban will have the effect of keeping smokers smoking and encouraging those who have quit to return to deadly cigarettes, while also harming New York’s economy. If history is any guide, the discussion will be brief and the damage will be done. It must not go down that way.There was a time, not long ago, when New York City was widely perceived to be the hotbed of progressive, liberated thought not just in America, but worldwide. People flocked here to break free from the shackles of conformity and societal opprobrium, experimenting in every field of human endeavor with little fear of official disdain.Not any more: beginning during the reign of Mayor Giuliani in the 1990s and peaking, many hoped, during the administration of his successor, Michael Bloomberg, these freedoms have gradually been whittled away by nanny-state oversight.
No comments:
Post a Comment