by Carl V Phillips
If U.S. FDA had succeeded in banning e-cigarettes in 2009 as they did a decade before that, it would have been a bad policy action for many reasons. It would have served no legitimate purpose, violated the mission and spirit (and, according to Judge Leon, the letter) of the FD&C act, violated the ethical norms of free society, dramatically lowered the welfare of many people while making pretty much no one better off, and hurt the public’s health. But at least it would have been a fairly conservative incremental policy. Relatively few people were using the products and had not been doing so for very long. A few small businesses depended on it. It turns out that enormous benefits would have been lost. But at the time, the action would have been a relatively modest departure from the status quo.
This contrasts sharply with the present FDA plan to ban e-cigarettes (for that is what it is) which has all those other negative characteristics and additionally suffers from being a radical departure from a status quo in which millions of Americans use e-cigarettes at least occasionally, and probably hundreds of thousands rank them in importance below only basic necessities, friends, and family. A multifaceted industry and an entire culture have formed around them. The changes in the world that would be brought about by the ban are staggering. Continue reading