How to win the vote of generation vape

Nearly one in five young adults now vape. Gallup’s August survey found that 9 percent of adults overall use vapes. Nicotine pouches also skew young.

We increasingly have a generation whose habits look very different from those of their parents. This is a reality progressives must acknowledge, and a voting base we should strive to serve. I learned the importance of confronting reality as mayor of Ithaca during the opioid crisis. 

In 2014, three people died of heroin overdoses in Ithaca in just 10 days. We watched people die while America argued about whether harm reduction somehow condoned drug use. So, we developed the Ithaca Plan, bringing prevention, treatment, law enforcement and harm reduction together. We even proposed exploring supervised injection. 

My argument then was simple: If your goal is treatment and recovery, then use evidence-based approaches to protecting people, and start by keeping them alive. Tobacco presents different risks. But the governing lesson is familiar: Condemnation is not a substitute for sensible policy. Moral judgment is not a substitute for evidence.  

And the evidence has changed. The Food and Drug Administration says explicitly that no tobacco product is safe. But it also says tobacco products exist on........

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