New Surgeon General Should Prescribe Honesty On E-Cigs

by Sally Satel, Forbes.        Early last week, the nation’s new Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said health officials are “in desperate need of clarity” on electronic cigarettes to help guide policies. The technology should be embraced, he said, if evidence shows e-cigarettes are able to help those who otherwise have trouble quitting smoking. Dr.    ... MORE

Greg Gutfeld: New E-Cig Study Goes Up In Smoke

E-Cig attack vaporizes.    The New England Journal of Medicine ran a letter linking e-cigs to cancer and the panicky media gobbled it up like a pot brownie. But how sturdy is this research? What might happen if you tapped lightly on their findings? Yes, under closer scrutiny, this blockbuster collapsed faster than Michael Moore in a spin class. According to  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Operation Choke Point

Jacob Sullum: Are E-Cigarettes Displacing the Real Thing?

Technology's healthier choice.  Survey results released last week indicate that use of electronic cigarettes by American teenagers continues to rise, even as their use of conventional cigarettes continues to fall. You might think these diverging trends would give pause to critics who worry that e-cigarettes are "reglamorizing" the old-      ... MORE

Excellent News As E-Cigarette, Or Vaping, Use Rises

by Tim Worstall.   We’ve news from the government that the use of e-cigarettes, or vaping, is on the rise among schoolchildren and teenagers. We might think that this is a health story and it is, but behind it is an interesting little economic point and a guide to public policy. The question really revolves around whether vaping is a substitute   ... MORE

Garner's Death Shows How Stupid Laws Get People Killed

by David Harsanyi.    Killed for failure to pay a cigarette tax. After news of the baffling decision by the New York grand jury not to indict a police officer in the killing of Eric Garner, I sent out a (slightly) hyperbolic tweet that wondered why Americans would want to entrust their free speech and health care to an institution that will kill you over    ... MORE

FDA Regulatory Expansion Jeopardizes Public Health

Anti-cancer device in the crosshairs. In August, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed expanding its regulatory authority over tobacco products to include cigars, pipe tobacco, hookah tobacco, electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), and dissolvable products and gels. Currently, cigars are the most popular item in this group, but    ... MORE

Eliza Gray: E-Cigs Are Smokers’ Favorite Quitting Tool

No wonder big govt wants them regulated. Electronic cigarettes are a more popular tool for smokers trying to quit than nicotine gums and patches, according to a new study of consumer behavior from Kantar Media. As e-cigarettes have exploded from niche product to $2 billion-plus industry, big tobacco isn’t the only industry facing        ... MORE

Let The Free Market Kill The Combustible Cigarette

by Michael R. Hufford & Gilbert Ross.       Today approximately 14,000 people will die of tobacco-related diseases around the world. The same will happen tomorrow and day after that, leaving nearly 6 million dead in the coming year alone — more than 5 million from direct tobacco use. That does not include the lives lost from secondhand    ... MORE

Study Finds E-Cigs Help Smokers Quit Better Than Patches

by Brian Stallard.     No wonder big tobacco wants them banned. New evidence has surfaced that suggests using electronic cigarettes may actually help tobacco smokers kick their harmful habit. However, past studies have shown just the opposite, meaning that the consensus is still unclear even as the facts are finally coming in. A study recently    ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Bizarre Arguments And Behavior

Deceivers and control freaks.     Some statements and arguments are so asinine that you'd have to be an academic or a leftist to take them seriously. Take the accusation that Republicans and conservatives are conducting a war on women. Does that mean they're waging war on their daughters, wives, mothers and other female members of their  ... MORE

The Boom In Smuggling To Avoid Cigarette Taxes

by Jonathan Berr.        Another government-provoked black market. More than half of the cigarettes sold in New York State are smuggled in from other places to avoid the Empire State's taxes on smokes, which have soared nearly 200 percent since 2006, according to a report issued by the conservative Tax Foundation. New York is the highest net    ... MORE

Toni Clarke: E-Cig Industry Braces For Regulatory Attack

Anti-smoking device has political enemies.     Big Pharma and Big Tobacco to name two. Lobbyists for electronic cigarette companies have been beating a path to the White House, hoping to prevent the administration from imposing strict, and possibly costly, rules on the burgeoning $2 billion industry. In November and December,        ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Bit By Bit Strategy

A relentless march of busybodies and tyrants.   There's a move on to prohibit Washington's football team from calling itself "Redskins," even though a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision said that it has that right. Now the name change advocates are turning to the political arena and intimidation. The NCAA has already banned the University of    ... MORE

Prohibition Lite Is Making RYO Cigarettes All The Rage

by Jeffrey A. Tucker.     A month ago, I was sitting with some college students for lunch. After we ate, two of them took out loose-leaf tobacco and rolling papers, with filters and all. They started rolling cigarettes at the table. In some way, it looked more like poverty than a charming anachronism. Puzzled, I asked why they were doing this. The   ... MORE

Reid J. Epstein: President's Cigarette Tax Up In Smoke

Fortunately, it just hot air all along.      Remember the cigarette tax hike President Barack Obama proposed in his big budget rollout? The White House barely does. Presidential budgets are all about theater. But this year’s was more theatrical than most: Its biggest single new proposal — the sin tax to generate $78 billion to fund a preschool     ... MORE

Ben Wolfgang: Obama's Tax On The Pursuit Of Happiness

Sets his sights on vodka, golf and cigarettes. President Obama’s budget doesn’t just go after wealthy Americans. It’s also got new taxes on vodka, cigarettes and other unexpected items, ABC News reported. The fiscal 2014 spending plan, which looks to raise about $1.8 trillion in new revenue, also tackles golf courses, which can no longer be counted ... MORE

Brady Dennis: FDA To Roll Out New Cigar Regulations

Government continues to reduce the people's options.   Nearly four years after it began regulating cigarettes, the Food and Drug Administration is poised to extend its reach to a broader range of tobacco products. At the top of that list: cigars, which have experienced a boom in recent years even as cigarette sales have declined, in part    ... MORE

Sin Tax Wars! 60.9% Of All Smokes In NY Go Untaxed

High taxes push consumers toward smugglers.    With all the nonsense that’s been going on in the Empire State of late – especially the Governor’s successful gun rantings - I’d begun to worry that New York was doomed for mediocrity. But for better or worse, you just can’t keep the government of this state down. If we can’t lead in freedom,   ... MORE

Ten Little-Known Consequences Of A Second Obama Term

by Matt Purple. We all know what the wrecking balls of a second Obama term will be: widespread unemployment, stagnant economic growth, enormous debt. But the consequences don't stop there. Believing in activist government means your work is never finished. You pass a new law that you think combats injustice and inefficiency. Then human nature kicks ... MORE