Giving Thanks To Attorney General
In previous news, Iowa’s Attorney General Tom Miller spoke his opinion about vaping to other public officials.
In an article published by the Des Moines Register, they give thanks, “we thank him for sharing his thoughts and encourage other public officials to look at e-cigarettes with an open mind when crafting state and local policy on the sale and use of e-cig devices. Many of our e-cig shops have banded together over the past two years primarily because we knew that policy makers needed to hear our story from us, and not those who may want to distort our story and products for their own gain. Known as Iowans for Alternatives to Smoking and Tobacco (IFAST), we have been instrumental in letting state legislators and local elected officials understand what an e-cig is, and more importantly, what it is not.”
“The attorney general is right on several fronts. Lighting tobacco leaves on fire and ingesting the smoke is undoubtedly a “dramatically greater (harm) than the harm of the e-cigarette.””
His stance on vaping has drawn national notice from supporters and detractors. “There has been an effort to say that combustible cigarettes and e-cigarettes are equally harmful, that their companies are equally evil, and that they should be strongly regulated the same way. This view is incorrect, but it has gotten significant traction,” Miller wrote. “…People making misstatements about e-cigarettes have the best of intentions – to keep kids from being addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes. But adults misleading kids to get them to do what we want has always been a failed strategy.”
Miller supported the idea that the devices can help current smokers kick deadly tobacco cigarettes.
Miller has spent the past 20 years helping lead efforts to bring tobacco companies to heel, including through lawsuits. He currently is national chairman of the “Truth Initiative,” which distributes information about the dangers of the tobacco industry.
The attorney general said he doesn’t think vaping are completely safe, but he believes they could be valuable tools. “The potential is that if smokers of combustible cigarettes switch to e-cigarettes, we could save a lot of lives,” including up to 4,500 per year in Iowa, he said.
Miller said he wrote the short statement himself. He said he rarely speaks to representatives from the vaping industry, but he has been influenced by academic researchers who see the potential benefits of the devices.