Michigan's new anti-vape rules criminalize "possession"

Look, vaping is not very good for you. Is this the worst What could you do to your body? Of course not. But does enthusiastically sucking a witch chemical drink represent an objective risk to health? Duh. However, as anti-vape hysteria increases across the country – with executive orders in Michigan, New York, and potentially all over the country – it has become clear that all of this is becoming a reality ridiculous.

Take, for example, Michigan's recently promulgated e-cigarette regulation, ordered by Governor Gretchen Whitmer earlier this month, as part of a broader effort to combat the vape to reduce the risk of cancer. use by minors. Jesse Kelley and Carrie Wade of the conservative think tank R Street Institute note in a recently published article for The Detroit News, The new rules criminalize anyone with just four or more flavored sprays (that is, anything that is not aroma-free or just "tobacco-flavored"), because that person is "presumed to possess these products". articles with the intention of selling ".

It is at this point that I should note that Juul, arguably the largest and most traditional e-cig company, sells its pods in packs of four. And what could happen if you get busted with four cloves of Juul mint? As Kelly and Wade point out, you would be sentenced to "six months imprisonment and a fine per item".

In other words, owning a package of over-the-counter Juul capsules could take you to jail nearly half of the time spent in jail by Jeffrey Epstein after his first arrest in 2008. In addition, Michigan is the most One of the few states pursues all 17-year-olds as adults.

It's insane. If enforced with maximum effect, Whitmer's new rules on the removal of e-cigs by minors could very well create a new generation of vape criminals. Have we learned anything from the catastrophic failure that is the war on drugs, which has caused the explosion of the prison population without preventing people from consuming?

Vaping is not good for you, but smoking is not good either, and you can always buy a pack of menthol cigarettes at the counter. Meanwhile, I would bet that spending time in jail is probably the kind of thing that would spoil a child's life much worse than sucking four Juul mango pods.