San Francisco Chronicle Points Out Vaping Crackdown's Hypocrisy

In an article published to the business news section of the San Francisco Chronicle’s website, health care reporter Catherine Ho pointed out the hypocrisy of cracking down on vaping while leaving traditional cigarettes untouched.

While vaping has now been linked to over 1,000 cases of lung-related illnesses and nearly two dozen deaths across the United States, traditional cigarettes are responsible for far more deaths. However, conventional cigarettes remain untouched in the latest crackdown on vaping products.

Ho’s article points out what many vapers already know: smoking cigarettes is “deadlier” than vaping.

Cigarettes account for roughly 439,000 deaths each year in the United States. Regardless, it is vaping that’s in the cross hairs of bans across various cities, states, and even the nation.

The recent vaping-related deaths are believed to be linked, at least in part, to black-market THC products, according to U.S. health officials. These
“black-market THC products” are vape cartridges that are prefilled with THC oil, which are bought and sold on the black market. Due to their nature, they are essentially unregulated cannabis products which pose a possible risk to those who use them.

Tim Hubbard, an assistant professor of management at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, has been following the e-cigarette industry for some time. He was quoted by the SF Chronicle as having said that while each death “is tragic,” it appears as if tobacco “is getting a pass” when it shouldn’t.

“Every death is tragic, but when we look at deaths from e-cigarettes compared to tobacco, tobacco is absolutely getting a pass. And it shouldn’t.”

Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, the government has backed the use of e-cigarettes for smokers after Public Health England’s government-mandated e-cigarette evidence review found vaping to likely be far less harmful than smoking.