To help smokers quit, make them vapers
Does vaping lead young people on to conventional smoking? Or do e-cigarettes, instead, help cigarette smokers quit? Law prof Stephen Sugarman wades into a policy debate, in anL.A. Times op-ed.
September 16, 2015
(Mike Mozart photo via Wikimedia Commons)
As the sale of electronic cigarettes has grown over the past decade, so has public debate over regulating their use. Do e-cigarettes, which deliver nicotine but not tobacco tar, lead young people on to cigarette smoking, with all its known health risks? Or is vaping a boon because it helps cigarette smokers quit?
Last week, as the Los Angeles City Council banned the use of e-cigarettes in public places, and the California Legislature and Federal Drug Administration each considered anti-vaping measures, professor Stephen Sugarman joined the fray with an op-ed in the L.A. Times.
“Blanket laws discouraging the use of e-cigarettes are the wrong policy,” wrote Sugarman, a law prof with public-health expertise.
Instead, he proposes a “harm reduction” strategy to fight smoking, via a trio of policies he says “would encourage rather than discourage e-cigarette use” and thus “nudge many more Americans to quit smoking.”
Read his op-ed on vaping here.