An extremely odd thing I’ve noticed in the hundreds of articles I’ve read on vaping is how shrill opposition to vaping is. Many opponents of vaping seem like they would have hundreds of thousands of smokers die before admitting that harm reduction, though not quite as good as harm elimination, is a step in the right direction. These, of course, are often the same people who advocate for the availability of clean needles for drug addicts, but somehow when it comes to vaping rational reasoning goes out the window and public hysteria takes its place. During last year’s Golden Globes, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, formerly Elaine of Seinfeld and currently the main character of the HBO series Veep, was spotted vaping. The public outrage that followed is so ridiculous it’s beyond funny.

Most ridiculous of all were the politicians who rushes to decry her actions – actions, which, of course, were totally innocuous and fairly inconspicuous to begin with. Representatives Henry Waxman from California and Frank Pallone, Jr. from New Jersey told the president of NBS that they were dismayed that Julia Louis-Dreyfus was sending this kind of message to children. How does that reaction make any sort of sense? Does anyone think of Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the ultimate role model for our future generation? And how is she sending “the wrong message” to children by semi-privately vaping during the Golden Globes? In another, more rational world, she might have been praised for her dedication to kicking her smoking habit. But not here, and not now.

I make fun of the “think of the children” motif we’ve seen employed in anti-vaping campaigns all the time, but more and more I am starting to think that, despite the fact that this motif is often employed disingenuously by people who stand to gain from the banishment of vaping from the public sphere, it is also this sentiment that fuels a lot of the shrillest opposition to vaping. New Haven, CT, for instance, recently banned vaping in and around public playgrounds and some parks across the city, despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence that second-hand vaping is at all problematic. Given that children aren’t banned from attending theatrical functions that employ fog machines, I am more inclined to believe that what the city of New Haven was doing here is trying to limit kids’ exposure to vaping.

But isn’t that silly? City governments aren’t meant to parent, and neither is the House of Representatives. Why are we supposed to guard the rights of parents to not have to say no to their kids over the rights of someone to pursue their own ends in a way that does not interfere with anyone else’s life in any way? Since when is Julia Louis-Dreyfus supposed to parents other people’s children while she’s in attendance at the Golden Globes? What’s the problem with telling your kid that vaping is a bad idea when he witnesses a stressed out mom vaping while her kids are swinging on the monkey bars? And since when are the Golden Globes something kids watch in droves, anyway?

Happy vaping!