Will e-cigarette regulation help or hurt? Your Say

Letter to the editor:

The FDA stepped forward to slow the speeding e-cigarette train. Years after e-cigarettes arrived on the U.S. market and after countless studies demonstrating their dangers, the government has moved to stem its spread. But what else can be expected from a giant government sloth?

Complaints and wailing by purveyors of e-cigarettes have started. They speak of jobs that will be lost — a prolific political argument that seems to imply that jobs are worth just about any consequence, however detrimental. In the final analysis, this measure by the FDA is more than nothing, but certainly inadequate as a solution to nicotine addiction and the many people who transition to conventional tobacco.

Michael E. White; Oxford, Mass.

Comments from Facebook are edited for clarity and grammar:

Regulation? This is nothing more than a slight-of-hand prohibition. The only remaining product on the market will be those made by big tobacco companies. When something is proven safer than cigarettes, does it make sense to regulate them out of existence?

— Jim Adams

Addiction is addiction, whatever the delivery method.

— Dwane Koppler

The FDA action will send many vapers back to the killer cigarettes. Is this a free country or not?

The FDA allows a known and serious health risk to be sold every day in tobacco cigarettes, yet they try to ban the very thing that will allow smokers to quit that nasty cigarette habit.

It seems to me that this is a war against vaping that will clear the playing field for big tobacco companies.

— David Pritchett