Vaping: the 21st century’s bubonic plague, the root of all problems in America. Did your car break down on the way to work yesterday? Thank vaping. Did your wife leave you for a younger, hotter guy? Thank vaping. Did you suffer a heart attack at 21? Well, maybe you can actually thank vaping for that. 

It is true that starting to vape as a non-smoker is never recommended. However, the American government’s war on vaping will create a harmful black market, leave cigarette smokers stranded, and take away fundamental liberties.

Recently, the Trump administration announced that they plan to ban all non-tobacco flavored e-cigarette cartridges (commonly known as e-cigs or vapes), including menthol and mint flavors. This is not a complete ban on all e-cigs; the thought process is that the banning of all flavors but tobacco flavor will deter young people from vaping. 

In theory, banning the flavors seems like an okay idea. About 65 percent of high schoolers that use e-cigs say that they use fruit, mint, or menthol flavors. However, we can look at America’s past and see how a ban on a popular recreational substance will work. Spoiler alert, pretty bad.

When the U.S. adopted the 18th Amendment, prohibiting alcohol, the drinking rate initially decreased; after that, however, a black market explosion ensued. The fact that there weren’t any regulations on the products that were produced illegally caused more damage than the drinking before prohibition. Nicotine will undoubtedly meet the same fate if this ban takes place. There is already evidence of the adverse effects of the black market as seen by the seven recent deaths linked to vaping. The deaths are currently thought to have been caused by illicit THC cartridges, purchased from shady suppliers, that contained vitamin E in their formula. If all flavors but tobacco are banned, a black market for alternately flavored e-cig cartridges would inevitably form, and seven deaths would become 7,000.

With all of the bad press on e-cigs, people forget the main reason why e-cigs were even invented: to save cigarette smokers’ lives. Cigarettes are objectively worse for a person than vaping and account for about 20 percent of the annual deaths per year in America. While cigarettes contain acetone, tar, formaldehyde and 66 other chemicals that are carcinogens and toxic, most popular vape juices contain mostly vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol, which are considered safe in doses expected while vaping. Nicotine in any form is not healthy for the body, but banning one of the main aspects of e-cigs might turn people back to cigarettes, having the opposite effect as intended.

Banning e-cigs is an attack on the freedom and liberties of Americans. How can we claim to be  “the land of the free” while taking away people’s choice to do what they want with their bodies? They’ve already tried to ban alcohol, and as previously mentioned, it only expanded the black market and restricted freedom. Taking away the bodily autonomy of Americans is the antithesis of freedom, ultimately saying that humans aren’t capable of making decisions for themselves.

Vaping is undoubtedly a problem that has been growing in the past five years. However, bans are not the way to solve it. The way to stop the crisis is better education, more information on vaping, and more regulations on what composes the liquid in vapes.

So now, for better or worse, you can live your life knowing that your car broke down on the way to work because you kept driving for months with your check engine light on, and your wife left you because “boys night” was every night. Just don’t thank vaping.