“For the children.” That is a go-to justification for politicians and bureaucrats seeking to infringe on individual rights. It was on display last week in the final minutes of the testimony of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary before a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Makary was exaggerating the extent of vaping among high school students and saying that the addiction to vaping among “kids in America” is “something that we have to address” and a “top priority” for Donald Trump’s presidential administration.
Makary comments bring to mind the scare stirred up about marijuana decades back, including through the 1930s movie Reefer Madness now enjoyed by many for its over-the-top fearmongering in regard to the plant. And, yes, the movie’s focus too was on the children.
As marijuana legalization continues to progress in America, vaping has increasingly become a target for government-enforced restrictions on people both young and old. Makary and his cohort of nanny statists are determined to combat their hyped-up vaping threat that, as the Reefer Madness trailer put it for marijuana, is a “new and deadly menace .. with its roots in hell.”
Jacob Sullum, in a Monday Reason article you can read here, provided details regarding Makary’s comments and how they conflict with President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to “save vaping.”
