Good Afternoon, My name is ______ and I am a former smoker of ____ years and a current vapor of ____ years.
Since vaping I have personally experienced a vast improvement in my health, and I know 100’s of other individuals who experienced the same thing. When considering limiting access to this product that has added years to my life, if not completely saved it, I can’t help but get frustrated by one simple fact; Many of the arguments against vaping simply defy common sense!
We heard fear arguments making completely unsubstantiated claims about Vapor devices renormalizing smoking; but that makes even less sense than saying drinking water normalizes drinking Vodka. At least with Water and Vodka they’re both clear liquids, but tell me, does this look anything like a cigarette? (hold up a box mod) – absolutely not! Vaping does not renormalize smoking, it only normalizes vaping!
We also hear that, vaping is so attractive that it poses a risk because it may attract new users, and that it could function as a gateway to traditional tobacco; I cannot be the only one who sees how that is an inherent contradiction.
It is impossible to argue that vaping is so much more attractive than tobacco, that it poses a serious risk regarding new user adoption – and then turn around and also argue these same people who you claim were “seduced” by vaping – will all of a sudden pick up a deadly smoking habit – which by definition, for the initial argument to hold true, must then be more attractive than vaping!
The gateway theory is not only inherently contradictory and in defiance of common sense, it has also been debunked.
According to a study by Dr. Wagener of the University of Oklahoma, After Surveying 1,300 individuals with an average age of 19, only 43 individuals (3.3%) responded that a vapor device was their first nicotine product, and only 1 of those 43 (total percent of sample size = .07%) went on to smoke conventional cigarettes. With an incidence of approximately 20% of the population that currently smokes tobacco, and 25.9% of youth experimenting with tobacco, this data indicates that Vapor Devices not only do not lead to tobacco initiation, they prevent it!
Furthermore, Though vaping is new, it’s not that new anymore. If the gateway theory was at all true – in the 8 years vaping has been around, we should have seen an uptick in tobacco consumption; but we’ve seen the exact opposite.
Since vaping was introduced, smoking has decreased at a documented far faster rate of decline – and that fully supports the argument that people are choosing to vape instead of smoking – which I shouldn’t have to tell you, is good for the public health.
HB5 is a bad piece of legislation because it is based on unwarranted fears at best, a legislative lack of due diligence in looking at all the publicly available research and data, and all together simply defies common sense.
The only impact vaping has on tobacco use is decreasing it, and for that reason, if this legislature wishes to promote the public health and end tobacco related death and disease, the last thing it should do is make vaping less accessible.