I’ve posted about Merkley before when he was fighting against vaping flavors for the children. Well, he’s back in the news with possibly the most ignorant statement I’ve ever heard about vaping and e-cigs…
“All of these are designed to addict children to tobacco,” he said after a meeting at the Multnomah County Building. “What the cigarette companies know is that adults don’t start using tobacco. Ninety-plus percent of tobacco users as adults began as teenagers.”
Are you for real? While I agree that most people who smoke started as kids where does he get off saying that e-cigs are designed to get kids hooked on tobacco? As far as I know only one tobacco company in the U.S. makes an e-cig. They’re not designed to get kids hooked on smoking. They’re designed mostly as an alternative to smoking with the added benefit of helping people to quit. I can’t see how e-cigs and vaping could possibly convince someone to smoke considering all the drawbacks associated with smoking. Not just the health concerns but the social stigmas as well. If I were to actually smoke a cigarette today I would choke and cough like there’s no tomorrow. Similarly to what I did when I first inhaled tobacco smoke. If any underage kid actually used an e-cig and then tried a cigarette and then switched to smoking I’d me amazed.
I would lay odds that Senator Merkley has probably never smoked a cigarette in his life although he does set a great example of how politicians in this country have become completely out of touch with its citizens.
The Trench Reynolds Report 