Jacqueline Collins
Audio By Carbonatix
Recent history is littered with examples of the conventional wisdom being wrong, and everyone from world leaders to top CEOs to rank-and-file voters winding up gobsmacked when they failed to consider the possibility that everything they believed to be true turned out to be false.
Think of it as the “Black Swan” theory, named after Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s famous book.
Hillary Clinton would “inevitably” become a U.S. President (proved wrong, twice). Donald Trump couldn’t win a presidential election (also proved wrong, twice). Americans would never vote for an African-American woman on a major party presidential ticket (they voted in Kamala Harris as Vice President). Tom Brady and Rob Grownkowski couldn’t wage successful post-retirement comebacks (they did). Housing prices in the mid- to late-2000s would never decline (they did). Tariffs could not cause yields to spike in the bond markets (they did). The WNBA would never find a way to attract viewers (meet Caitlin Clark). Humpback whales would die out before the turn of the 21st century (there are now nearly 80,000 of them).
It’s time to add another one to the list: There will never be a way to reduce the harm smokers sustain from consuming nicotine other than giving up nicotine, cold turkey.
Set aside that we’re now very familiar with nicotine-based pharmaceuticals intended to enable smokers to quit, and that the market is now also host to a variety of other nicotine-delivering products designed for those not able to fully kick nicotine, or not looking to do so…but are looking to reduce their harm.
That’s great news. The bad news is that Denver might be about to remove these products from the market, all because of the erroneous conventional wisdom that nicotine flavorings induce kids to smoke. That is despite the fact that a huge swath of scientific research shows that removing flavored vapor and similar products from the market drives kids, and adults, to consume conventional, deadly cigarettes while the availability of these products can help smokers quit.
Denver currently has on the books a ban on all sales of flavored vapes, and perhaps most absurdly, nicotine pouches like ZYN and Rogue that have been found to be far less harmful to health than cigarettes. On Tuesday, Denverites who signed a petition to put the measure on this November’s ballot will get their say, though.
Denverites should hope both for the sake of individual liberty and public health that voters toss the ban away like one of those stubbed-out, stinky cigarette butts.
Individual voters may not know it, but the Food and Drug Administration has found that vaping is much less harmful than traditional smoking because authorized vaping products pose a lower risk of cancer and similar serious health conditions than cigarettes.
Notably, the FDA — under President Joe Biden — determined that nicotine pouches (which a new study shows smokers are using to quit cigarettes) are far less harmful to users than cigarettes. The FDA actually said pouches “pose lower risk of cancer and other serious health conditions” “than cigarettes.” But here’s the catch: A lot of people who use those pouches prefer flavors that aren’t Camel or American Spirit copycats. Denver’s ban targets all non-tobacco flavor — even mint, which appeals to smokers of menthol cigarettes.
It turns out that sometimes, science defies common sense. Bats aren’t really blind. Alaska has a higher number of murderers per capita than California or Florida. And banning flavored vapor and nicotine pouches would likely have disastrous public health effects.
Oxford University Press reported that one-third of U.S. smokers age 18 to 34 said they’d switch to cigarettes if they couldn’t vape. Yale, NY, and the University of Missouri have found the same. R Street Institute expert Jeffrey Smith reaches the same conclusions. The British National Health Service concludes that “electronic cigarettes are used by many people to stay smoke free after they have successfully quit smoking.” In fact, in Great Britain, family doctors routinely push smokers to switch to vapor.
Rates of traditional smoking are the lowest in American history since collection of such data began. A 2024 study showed that only 11 percent of Americans smoked in the previous week. Among America’s youth, only 1.4 percent reported regular use.
Vapor and nicotine pouches are part of how we got here, and even though conventional wisdom might seem to dictate that having them be available in flavors like peppermint or citrus or apple or mango or coffee could hopscotch users onto conventional cancer-sticks, conventional wisdom is wrong. By contrast the science is right — and it’s clear.
For years, progressives have said to “trust to the science.” Denverites should do exactly that and allow smokers to choose less harmful alternatives—even if they taste nicer than a Marlboro Light.
