Sunday, September 06, 2015

Vaping bans- oh, the stupidity

Laws are based on lies. Those lies are told to convince you to go along with being ordered around.

Recently during a car ride with my parents, the subject of vaping came up.

My dad objects to vaping because "kids put marijuana in e-cigarettes".
My mom objects because she has "heard that it's just as dangerous as smoking".

When confronted by such obvious brainwashing I need to ask questions to show the silliness of the claims, or to find out why the claim justifies "laws". But, instead I usually get irritated.

I don't know if kids put pot in e-cigs. And it doesn't matter if they do. People can put pot in brownies, pipes, paper, car cigarette lighters, glass, and many other things. Should we ban everything?

Even the feds are finally admitting to more medically beneficial effects of Cannabis- while insisting it must remain banned because it "has no legitimate medical use". A lie. But even it it was dangerous, and kids insisted on inhaling it, it doesn't make prohibition right. Eating cat litter is probably much more dangerous than vaping Cannabis, but it isn't a political cause. Yet.

But what if vaping is DANGEROUS?!?

Recent studies suggest that nicotine is probably no more dangerous than caffeine (also a poison). But what if they are wrong? If you want to inhale nicotine- or ingest caffeine- no one has a right to say you can't. For sure, vaping nicotine is going to be less harmful than inhaling nicotine in smoke. But what if I'm wrong about that? It still doesn't matter.

I am a non-smoker. I am not an anti-smoker. I grow tobacco. I have several old pipes that I love to hold and look at. I have an old pipe that looks like something Sherlock Holmes (the popular conception of him, anyway) would have smoked. I like how the old pipes smell- it's a good smell. I like the smell of pipe smoke if someone is smoking one in my presence. Sometimes I enjoy a faint whiff of cigar smoke. Even cigarette smoke brings back fond memories of smoky bars and karaoke. I have no desire to inhale tobacco smoke- unless it is in a bar during karaoke. In which case I'd probably put up with piranhas nipping at my ankles. If I am somewhere, and smoke is bothering me, I move away. It is so simple I can't understand why others don't discover that trick. Yes, there are times or places where you can't move away. In that case you may need to plan ahead. If you don't like being in a car with smoke, don't allow smoking in your car, or don't hitch a ride with a smoker.

I am a non-vaper. I am not an anti-vaper. If I had a vaping pipe that looked like my Sherlock Holmes pipe, I'd probably occasionally use it. I'm not too worried about getting addicted- I seem to be resistant to addiction. I'll not say how I know that. A person vaping in my present wouldn't bother me any more than a person reading a book in my presence. The puffs of vapor don't scare or offend me in any way. Sometimes it even smells good- and is probably healthier than smelling most air freshener sprays. Even if the vapor contains trace amounts of nicotine.

The knee-jerk "laws" and rules against vaping- or against certain people vaping- are idiotic. They are violations of liberty. While a business owner has the right to ban vaping on-premises, doing so shows the owner to be ignorant. Possibly even stupid. Certainly they are someone hopping on a bandwagon of hysteria rather than thinking for himself. They are banning something because it kinda, sorta looks like something else. If you can't see that an e-cig looks nothing like a tobacco cigarette.

I just don't understand the minds of people who want to ban things.

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