Wow – I never thought I would say this, but here is a great piece in Townhall about e-cigarettes.

Last week, the House of Representatives approved a bill that authorizes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate tobacco products. Lest anyone think that cigarettes will be safer as a result, the bill prohibits manufacturers from mentioning FDA regulation, saying, “consumers are likely to be confused and misled” if they know about it.

Meanwhile, supporters of the bill, which the Senate will consider later this year, are demanding that the FDA ban e-cigarettes, a potentially life-saving alternative for smokers, as unauthorized drug delivery devices. Last month, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who brags that he is “one of the Senate’s leaders in protecting Americans from the dangers of smoking,” urged the FDA to take e-cigarettes off the market “until they are proven safe.” The next day, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids applauded Lautenberg’s position.

Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, did not. “This is about as idiotic and irrational an approach as I have ever seen in my 22 years in tobacco control and public health,” he wrote on his blog. “A public policy maker who touts himself as being a champion of the public’s health as well as some of the leading national health advocacy organizations is demanding that we ban what is clearly a much safer cigarette than those on the market, but that we allow, protect, approve and institutionalize the really toxic ones.”

Again, lawmakers are quick to say “let’s stop them from smoking”, but until you have been in the same boat as a smoker, you don’t know what its like. The argument that “we don’t know if inhaling nicotine is safe” is also down right crazy, especially when there are nicotine inhalers on the market, which are approved by the FDA.

And time again for my daily pitch. Please sign the petition to keep these life savers on the market. A failure to sign is giving a victory to big tobacco.