Hypocrisy is always in abundance with politicians in the D.C. swamp, yet Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) battle to ban e-cigarette takes hypocrisy to a new level. In the name of protecting children, he has targeted a vaping product called Elf Bar for a possible government ban. There’s nothing hypocritical with that on its own, Schumer is someone who sees government power as his to wield. The hypocrisy comes in when you consider he is a leader in the movement to legalize marijuana nationwide. How does he think most people use marijuana? Vaping is much safer than unfiltered pot smoke.
Let’s be honest. A vaping product is not more attractive to people under 18 than marijuana is. There aren’t a bunch of popular songs about vaping the way there are about weed and being stoned. We can expect teenagers to huddle outside of cannabis dispensaries, much like they do liquor stores, hoping to find an adult to buy it for them. There are no corresponding crowds outside vape shops waiting for some adult to buy them anything.
This battle erupted at a press conference back in March of this year. The New York Post reported on March 19, 2023, “Schumer is calling on the US Food and Drug Administration to investigate a hot, new Chinese-made e-cigarette that he believes is skirting American advertising laws by appealing directly to kids and teenager via social media.” The product is called Elf Bar and he has compared it to a product rolled out a few years ago Juul. Schumer complained that these vaping products were available at New York City bodegas, which of course they are because that’s where smokers buy their products. You don’t sell tires at a McDonald’s; you sell hamburgers because that’s where people go to get them.
It's just odd why Schumer would seem to have such a vendetta against various vaping products while being a leader in the legalization movement. Just to be clear, I couldn’t care less about marijuana legalization. I did what I did when I was younger and am rather libertarian about what adults do with their bodies. That being said, I’m not sure legalization is such a net-positive for society. It’s a great cash cow for governments, but the societal ramifications of making it easy to use without consequence have yet to be fully measured. Time will tell.
That being said, Schumer is an outspoken supporter of the SAFE Banking Act that “would ensure cannabis businesses that operate in states with legal cannabis have equal access to critical banking infrastructure,” which means it would allow them to accept credit cards (they’re all cash now) and free banks from the fear of federal wrath should they do business with them. He mentioned how “this bill has provisions particularly aimed at helping minority business owners,” yet no reference to how this bill would impact the communities where registered dispensaries are located. (HINT: They tend not to be located in wealthy neighborhoods.)
A more egregious example of his hypocrisy is his support of legalizing marijuana at the federal level. Politico reported on July 21, 2022, “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act would decriminalize weed on the federal level and allow states to set their own marijuana laws without fear of punishment from Washington.” All fine and great, but how does Schumer’s bill consider the impact on kids? It doesn’t. A discussion draft of this legislation, in the findings, makes zero mention of children. Weird, considering vaping and kids occupies an awful lot of his mind.
This is personal for me, having quit a 20-year smoking habit/addiction with the help of vaping. I’m not opposed to it, nor do I recommend it. My point is that Schumer’s selective invocation of the health of kids on vaping is disingenuous. It’s the hypocrisy that drives me nuts.
The bottom line is he doesn’t really care about any specific vaping product or kids, he’s just using this argument to push regulators into taking a hard line on the product and expand the federal government’s power into somewhere new. And if he really cared about health, he wouldn’t be going after the most successful stop-smoking aid out there while advocating for filter-less smoke from pot. As a former smoker who quit with the help of vaping (who then quit that, by the way), the idea that Chuck Schumer has made the health care of kids a priority is laughable when you look at his actions to promote marijuana.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.