November 3, 2021 5:35PM # Building (Tobacco Smoking Rates) Back Better By [Jeffrey A. Singer](https://www.cato.org/people/jeffrey-singer) --- SHARE House Budget Chair John Yarmuth (D‑KY) [reportedly](https://twitter.com/gopaulblair/status/1455971225222660102?s=21) added a “nicotine tax” that will affect nicotine-containing vaping products to the “Build Back Better” bill, currently under construction by House Democrats, as part of a [manager’s amendment](https://www.natlawreview.com/article/dewonkify-manager-s-amendment). The nicotine tax amendment can be found on [page 1973](https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/BILLS-117HR5376RH-RCP117-18.pdf) of what is currently a 2,135-page bill. Democratic legislators are seeking new ways to “pay” for the purported $1.75 trillion “Build Back Better” package, and it appears Rep. Yarmuth is willing to single out would-be tobacco quitters for an extra part of the tab. Nicotine-containing e‑cigarettes have proven themselves as a great [harm reduction](https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-the-vaping-panic-is-out-of-hand-20190920-ll6djbwnczffbphckaqjflxa3i-story.html) tool. [In the U.K.](https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/public-health/2021/10/whose-lungs-are-they-anyway/), Public Health England encourages primary care doctors to put brochures in their offices that recommend e‑cigarettes to their patients to help them quit tobacco. Britain’s National Health Service is even considering [paying](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/electronic-cigarettes-could-be-prescribed-on-the-nhs-for-smokers-who-want-to-quit-nz9lf3t82) for e‑cigarettes to help smokers quit. The Food and Drug Administration, not nearly as enlightened as its British counterparts, has been waging a [crusade against e‑cigarettes](https://www.cato.org/blog/fdas-inexplicable-crusade-against-tobacco-smoking-harm-reduction-continues). Yet last month, the FDA approved three vaping products, [citing](https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-permits-marketing-e-cigarette-products-marking-first-authorization-its-kind-agency) their harm reduction potential. Alas, these were tobacco flavored products, and [research](https://www.dropbox.com/s/b8uwoxay6i2fzb2/Docket%20No.%20FDA-2017-N-6565_FARSALINOS.pdf) [shows](https://vaping360.com/learn/juul-flavors/) tobacco quitters prefer flavored vaping. Hopefully the FDA will approve some flavored vaping products soon. The FDA’s approval of the tobacco-flavored vapes came days before we [learned](https://www.cato.org/blog/tobacco-sales-2020-first-time-two-decades) that, in 2020, tobacco sales were up as vaping sales were down. If House Democrats want to improve Americans’ health and welfare, penalizing people for trying to quit smoking is a strange way to show it. ##### Related Tags [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).