The claims that e-cigarettes are just as much of a health hazard as regular cigarettes and must be heavily taxed has touched off a fight in the public health community. A faction of public health officials has sided with e-cigarette companies and their assertion that e-cigarettes are much less dangerous than cigarettes and can in fact help people break the smoking habit.

The issue is coming to the fore in California because of voters’ passage of Proposition 56 last month. It will increase the state tax on a pack of cigarettes from 87 cents to $2.87 and mandates an “equivalent” increase in taxes on e-cigarettes, which allow users to heat nicotine fluid and inhale nicotine vapor without the tars they ingest when smoking regular cigarettes.

It’s not clear yet what “equivalent” means. State officials are still formulating the levies. But the Associated Press reports e-cigarette makers and distributors believe they will face a huge increase in state taxes that will raise the cost of vaping devices and liquids by more than 60 percent. If that happens, according to the American Vaping Association, it will be cheaper to smoke regular, more dangerous cigarettes in California than to “vape” — even though state taxes on regular cigarettes are going far higher as well.

In the United States, public health authorities, medical doctors and academics are broadly split on e-cigarettes. Some believe that e-cigarettes are so much less harmful that their use by conventional smokers should be encouraged. Some argue that there isn’t nearly enough hard research with which to draw conclusions about the relative healthiness of vaping. And some argue that e-cigarettes’ popularity threatens to undo the huge progress that has been made in reducing nicotine consumption in America over the last 50 years and should be heavily taxed and regulated for that reason alone.

Britain sees vaping as public health tool

These divided views aren’t the norm elsewhere. In California, state health officials issued a 2015 report blasting the emergence of vaping as a common habit, especially among the young. This report may be a factor in state officials’ consideration of heavy taxes for e-cigarettes.

Conversely, in the United Kingdom, physicians have been recommending that vaping be used by cigarette smokers because a massive government study found it is 95 percent healthier and has been a valuable tool for individuals trying to break their conventional smoking habits. These conclusions were released in a 2015 report by Public Health England.

Given that millions of Americans have died of lung cancer caused by smoking cigarettes, this would seem to make the case for vaping’s utility in fighting regular smoking. But many authorities are unpersuaded. Perhaps the most prominent critic of the notion of vaping as a public health tool is Stanton Glantz, a professor of tobacco control at the University of California, San Francisco.

In a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Glantz dismissed claims about vaping’s promise with a profanity. He acknowledges that e-cigarettes are healthier than regular cigarettes but sharply questions the British research. “I’ll eat my shoe if that 95 percent figure turns out to be correct five years from now,” he told the magazine.

Glantz says the big picture must not be ignored: “Are there people who have totally made the switch or quit completely because of these? Yes, I believe there are. Terrific. But most are what we call dual users — those who smoke both, often to smoke in places where they can no longer smoke cigarettes. If you’re talking about a smoker using these to inhale more dangerous chemicals, well, that has a net negative effect on public health.”

Proposition 56 takes effect on April 1. It is unclear if state officials will issue a draft proposal on how to tax e-cigarettes and seek public comment or decide rates without such input. The text of the 24-page ballot measure is silent on how the rules should be crafted.

By John Seiler

I love this part of the political campaign, just before the election, because the candidates and special interests get desperate and start slinging mud at one another. The late, great columnist Mike Royko said that “mud-slinging” is really “truth-slinging.”

Consider the University of California, San Francisco, which put up a list of endorsements of the anti-Proposition 29 campaign that have received bucks from Big Tobacco. It’s on the Web site of the school’s Center for Tobacco Research and Education. Thanks for the information, Stanton Glantz, PhD, professor of medicine.

The headline to the list reads, “Thousands of previously secret tobacco industry documents reveal links between Big Tobacco and No on 29 endorsers.”

But the good professor didn’t also point out that the University of California is going to get some of the tax money grabbed by Prop. 29, if it passes, for cancer research. Nor that the money will be taken from mainly poor folks and the lower-middle-class, about the only people who smoke any more. Aside, that is, from rich people like ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who get their Cubanos tax-free on the black market because of the embargo on Castroland. And except for the President of the United States.

Nor did the professor point out that another group would profit from Prop. 29, should it pass: Black marketeers and violent street gangs. Without taxes, cigarettes cost about a quarter a pack to produce, ship and stock. Throw in profits, and the cost would be about $1.50. But smokes at Vons, I noticed the other day, cost $5.50 a pack. Plus sales tax: so about $6 a pack. Dr. Glantz’s tax increase would boost that to $7 a pack.

That’s prime pickin’s for thieves and black marketeers.

The Pro-Prop. 29 forces are featuring ads with people whose relatives or friends died from lung cancer or some other tobacco-prelated ailment. Fair enough. Good mud/truth slinging.

Big Tobacco should retaliate by featuring the relatives and friends of those killed by gangs involved in cigarettes smuggling. Then end the ad with a shot of a gang car pumping bullets into a crowd of people. Final stentorian voice-over: “If Prop. 29 passes, the gangs will declare open warfare on the people of California. There will be glood in the streets. Yes, jobs will be created — for undertakers. Vote No on Prop. 29.”