More on the flooding of America by unregulated and illegal Chinese vape products. HB 1069 is a no brainer.
Interesting hearing this morning on House Bill 1069, where proponents of the measure to put a system in place to ensure that the vape prducts on the market are unadulterated included law enforcement, health officials, and others. Opponents included Jordan Mason, who crawled out from under a rock to cash a check for lobbying to tell the committee there’s no problem with unregulated vape products from China, and Kevin Quick whom we’re familiar with from when he ran for office, and others.
Because that’s who legislators should trust when it comes to saying that products consumed by humans as shipped directly with no inspections or testing from China are ok?
The thought in the back of my mind is that if we’re fighting against a plague of fentanyl being dumped in the United States by China, and we’re fighting against TikTok gathering personal information and sending to China, we’re banning Chinese drones because there’s a concern they’re spying on us, etcetera and so on, why in the name of God are we trusting people who want to buy the products they sell as cheaply as possible as they claim the ingredients in Chinese vape juice and pens are magically safe for consumption and don’t need the extra step of the Food & Drug Administration verifying that? Despite them being illegal for consumption in China
Did we all forget about “trust, but verify?”
House Bill 1069 is a no brainer. People opposing it seem to paint a doom and gloom story but they are making money off of kids using these products. Why are they complaining about a $100 registration fee? Because that’s a pretty small price to pay to make sure what you sell isn’t going to hurt someone.
Why do they think it’s an unreasonable thing to sell products that have applied for FDA Approval to make sure they aren’t full of random chemicals. Or worse, fentanyl:
As if highly addictive flavored nicotine didn’t already pose a serious threat, the illicit market has recently witnessed a concerning convergence between fentanyl and vaping devices. In an attempt to appeal to unsuspecting users, illegal drug manufacturers have been incorporating fentanyl into vape cartridges, which are then sold as seemingly harmless e-cigarettes. This deadly combination has created a new avenue for fentanyl consumption, catching many users off guard.
Right now South Dakota’s market is the legal market of FDA approved products. And it’s also the illicit market. Because we have no laws, and nobody is checking. That’s why we need this law.
The nation created the FDA in 1906 as a basic step to make sure that the things we consume don’t kill us. As a state, it’s irresponsible to allow this stuff to be sold without the most basic level of testing whether or not it will kill us, or at the least, make kids very, very sick. And that’s the step that HB 1069 would take.