For as long as I can remember I’ve been banging on about ‘creeping prohibition’.
The smoking ban didn’t stop people smoking but it severely restricted where they could light up.
Creeping prohibition.
The ban on menthol cigarettes outlawed an entire category of cigarette. Again it didn’t stop people smoking but it removed, overnight, a product previously purchased by one in five smokers in Britain.
Creeping prohibition.
Now, under proposals being considered by the Government, the age of sale of tobacco would rise one year every year so that eventually no-one would be permitted to buy tobacco whatever their age.
Creeping prohibition.
But wait, it doesn’t stop there. In the United States it’s been reported that the Biden administration wants to reduce the amount of nicotine in cigarettes sold in the US ‘to minimal or non-addictive levels’.
Effectively almost every cigarette currently on sale in America will be banned and replaced by a ‘less addictive’ product.
That isn’t creeping prohibition, it’s fast track prohibition.
And that’s not all. The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that Juul e-cigarettes are ‘to be ordered off US shelves’.
The WSJ report is behind a paywall but Reuters has the gist of it here:
The US Food and Drug Administration is preparing to order Juul Labs Inc to take its e-cigarettes off the market in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
You couldn’t make it up.
Then again, this is a product produced by a company whose founders wanted to eradicate cigarettes for good and create a ‘world without smokers’.
So while I should be outraged by the FDA’s reported attack on a legitimate product, the truth is I’m not. Reap what you sow and all that.
Readers may also recall that in an effort to stop the federal government banning Juul from selling any of its products - which were alleged to be fuelling a teen vaping ‘epidemic’ - the company voluntarily stopped selling all flavoured e-cigarettes with the exception of tobacco and menthol.
Appeasement rarely works so while yesterday’s report is bad news for Juul (in America at least) some good may come out of it if it persuades the tobacco and vaping industries to fight their corners and not give an inch unless it is absolutely necessary and there is no alternative.