Petty Tyrant

Saturday 10 August 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Fuck that petty tyrant Michael Bloomberg in the ass with a rusty chainsaw. “Why?” you ask?

The Bloomberg administration is quietly working to explicitly categorize electronic cigarettes as tobacco products and enact a sweeping ban on flavored e-cigs.

The details of the plan come from a newly leaked draft of three tobacco-related bills currently making their way through the City Council; one would raise the tobacco age to 21, while another would prohibit the display of cigarette advertising in stores. A third bill would prohibit the use of tobacco coupons, create a $10.50 price floor for cigarette packs, and increase the fines against those selling illegal cigarettes.

Initially the bills, drafted by the Health Department and introduced into the Council at the request of Mayor Bloomberg, were silent concerning the City’s position on electronic cigarettes.

“The bills were written with no intention of addressing electronic cigarettes at all,” Health Department Commissioner Thomas Farley told e-cigarette proponents [PDF] at a hearing in May.

The draft language reveals that this is no longer the case. While menthol and tobacco flavored e-cigarettes would ostensibly remain available at convenience stores, the burgeoning flavored e-cig market would ironically be relegated to “tobacco bars,” of which there are very few in New York City—mostly because they must have been in existence before December 31, 2001.

“This is a de facto ban on electronic cigarettes,” says Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor of Community Health Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health and a supporter of electronic cigarettes. “Pretty much all electronic cigarettes are flavored; they’re essentially flavored products. You’re basically telling a bunch of ex-smokers to go back to cigarettes.”
Dr. Siegel adds, “I think this would be a public health disaster.”

E-cigarettes save lives. Literally. All this ban will do is push those who have quit back towards cigarettes. I understand that rubbing out a ban boner is tough, but for fuck’s sake Bloomie, leave people the fuck alone.

2013-08-10  »  madlibertarianguy