As the U.S. government continues its crusade against flavored vaping products — citing concerns about youth appeal — a glaring double standard is becoming impossible to ignore. While public health officials and politicians’ rail against “kid-friendly” vape flavors like mango and blue razz, store shelves remain stocked with cotton candy vodka, birthday cake rum, and bright pink hard seltzers that clearly don’t target retirees.

The rationale behind banning flavored vapes is supposedly to protect youth. And yes — no one wants kids using nicotine. But this logic falls apart when you realize that alcohol — a drug that causes far more harm to teens and young adults — remains not only legal, but is actively marketed in neon packaging, pop culture tie-ins, and with dessert-themed flavors designed to be fun, sweet, and easily consumed.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

According to the CDC, alcohol is the most commonly used substance among young people in the U.S., and underage drinking is responsible for over 3,500 deaths each year. Meanwhile, not a single death has been directly attributed to nicotine vaping. And still, the focus remains on banning vapes — especially flavored ones — rather than creating responsible access or acknowledging their role in harm reduction for adult smokers.

RFK Jr. Wants to “Wipe Out” Chinese Disposables — But Misses the Bigger Picture

Independent vape brands — many offering safer, non-combustible alternatives to smoking — are being lumped together with counterfeit or unregulated imports from overseas. RFK Jr. recently pledged to “wipe out” Chinese disposable vapes in the name of protecting kids. But this soundbite-friendly promise misses the forest for the trees.

Banning all flavored disposables, regardless of origin or compliance, does nothing to address why adults use these products in the first place: to quit cigarettes. These bans have the unintended consequence of pushing former smokers back to combustible tobacco — the very thing public health policy should be aiming to reduce.

Big Tobacco Wins While Harm Reduction Loses

Let’s be honest — these sweeping bans don’t hurt Big Tobacco. In fact, they help. The few products that remain legally on the shelves are owned by big tobacco companies— the same ones that caused the cigarette epidemic in the first place. Their FDA-authorized “vape” products are bland, expensive, and ineffective for many users who relied on flavored alternatives.

The result? Small vape shops and independent manufacturers get shut out, and smokers are left with fewer, less effective tools to quit.

What’s the Real Goal?

If the government truly cared about youth safety and public health, they’d:

• Treat flavored vapor sales like alcohol, enforce ID checks and current laws.
• Fund education and prevention — not prohibition.
• Embrace tobacco harm reduction by accelerating the authorization of safer vape products.
• Support independent, PMTA-submitted brands that comply with FDA rules and offer adult-focused, life-saving alternatives to cigarettes.

Instead, we get political theater, half-truths, and policy that helps monopolies while punishing public health progress.

The fight against flavored vapes isn’t about kids — it’s about control. Until lawmakers stop ignoring the obvious contradictions in their approach and start recognizing vaping as a legitimate harm reduction tool, we’ll keep seeing misguided bans that do more harm than good.

Adults deserve choices. Smokers deserve tools. And youth deserve policy that actually protects them.