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This past Wednesday was a rough day for the electronic cigarette industry. The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing entitled Aggressive E-Cigarette Marketing and Potential Consequences for Youth. If it wasn’t already evident, the committee seemed to have made up its mind about electronic cigarettes.

You can watch the hearing right here. It’s a serious wake up call for anyone that thinks reason has a good chance of beating out emotion in this debate with anti-tobacco fanatics.

The hearing had only two representatives from the electronic cigarette side of things — Jason Healy from Blu and Craig Weiss from Njoy. The two were expected to answer to the activities of the entire industry from their own companies all the way down to the kitchen sink operations of stoners.

The hearing did little to make real progress. Speakers patted themselves on the back for anti-tobacco efforts in the past. The two e-cig company executives were berated and given little opportunity to speak effectively — at one point even being told they represent everything wrong with this country. Speakers requested meaningless and slanted commitments out of the two represented companies as if they spoke for the entire industry.

What was perhaps most surprising about this whole thing was the fact that the speakers didn’t even try to hide their contempt for the two representatives. With very little grasp of the actual numbers at hand and context to what’s going on in the industry, the speakers ranted about corrupt, children-obsessed marketing tactics. They all assumed that the only motive for selling e-cigs absolutely had to be financial — and how would you make money on e-cigs if you didn’t sell them to teens?

I’ve seen quite a lot of anti-e-cig rhetoric by now, but this entire hearing was frustrating, difficult, and infuriating to watch even for me. It’s hard to even know where to begin. I could argue that e-cigs have already proven themselves successful quitting aids, or that preliminary research indicates that nicotine not delivered via smoke is less addictive. I could take issue with the fact that two individuals, who did not seem willing enough to put up a fight represented the whole of the industry. I could even point out that the stated intention of the hearing was entirely overshadowed by self-righteous indignation and a series of unnecessary pats on the back between anti-tobacco folks.

But I’ll start simple. If you can’t be bothered to approach an issue with the slightest bit of open-mindedness… If you are asking questions to prove a point rather than to get answers… If you assume the person across the table is the devil… Then your so-called hearing is a farce. It exists only to prove a point which you decided — before you had any of the facts — you were right on.

Jason Healy is not the Devil. Neither is Craig Weiss. Time spent berating these two could have been spent discussing solutions or creating a plan of action. Think what you will about Njoy and Blu, but they are not the companies out there selling flavors like cotton candy and gummy bear (if that is indeed what you take issue with). They are not using the image of Santa Claus to promote vaping. They actually came to the hearing to be part of the conversation knowing full well they were likely to get beat up a bit. And as bad as it was, they both have to be commended for maintaining their composure (I certainly would not have).

It’s not lightly that I say a two hour hearing was without any value, but this was garbage politics at it’s worst. More on this whole thing later.