Massachusetts passes bill to ban flavored tobacco, impose 75% tax on e-cigarettes

Johnboy60

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Nov. 21 (UPI) -- Massachusetts on Thursday passed a law banning the sale of flavored tobacco and placing an excise tax on e-cigarettes.

The bill would make Massachusetts the first state to place a permanent ban on menthol cigarettes, impose a 75 percent tax on e-ciagarettes and order healthcare providers to pay for tobacco cessation programs in an effort to curb youth smoking.

Massachusetts passes bill to ban flavored tobacco, impose 75% tax on e-cigarettes
 
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Aryeh Jay

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Menthol cigarettes are getting banned in UK next year. You wont be able to buy them after May next year in UK.

My father used to smoke Benson and Hedges when they held the Queens Royal Warrant. Once she removed sponsorship, he quit. I thought it was funny because #1, She Didn’t smoke them and #2 nothing about them changed except the packaging.
 
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ThatRobGuy

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Couple issues with what their general statement is.

Lumping "menthol" cigarettes in with e-cigarettes together on the grounds that "well, they're both flavored" is flawed logic. It's not the flavor aspect that dictates the danger.

Second, menthol cigarettes don't have cessation applications like vaping does. For instance, nobody is menthol cigarettes to get off of cigarettes. People are, however, using vaping as a way to quit smoking altogether.

Lastly, imposing a hefty tax on something (that studies have shown are one of the most effective cessation tools Vaping much better smoking cessation aid than gum, patches, major study finds) in the name of cessation efforts is completely counter productive.

In the new study, researchers tracked nearly 900 middle-age smokers who were randomly assigned to receive either e-cigarettes or nicotine replacement products, including patches, gums and lozenges. After one year, 18 percent of e-cigarette users were smoke-free, versus 9.9 percent of those using the other products.

Basically, they're creating a monopoly for the existing cessation products that only have half the success rate of e-cigarettes in terms of getting people off it altogether.


The CDC has even finally acknowledged that this recent sharp uptick in vaping deaths have been due to sketchy THC cartridges, and not the traditional vaping products that have been used without that issue for a decade.

Deaths linked to vaping often involved THC products, not nicotine, CDC says - CNN

The reason why that wasn't uncovered right away is due to the fact that the people impacted by the lung condition didn't want to admit they'd been using something that's still illicit in many states.

Targeting the reputable, controlled, and quality checked vaping products like Juul, Alto, Blu, etc... because of the outcomes involving unregulated internet-purchased THC cartridges is the equivalent of putting a 75% tax on Absolut Vodka because some people got sick after drinking some bathtub hooch that they bought from a random guy on the internet simply because "they're both variations of drinking"
 
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