By Dave Pickrell

What part of no danger don't you understand?

Here comes the sound of anti-smokers talking about the harms of e-cigarettes. You know, the ones that burn no tobacco, only heat up a solution containing nicotine. No harms are known either to the smoker or anyone close by, but that still will not stop the shrill voice of the tobacco critics claiming regulation must be done to protect the public from the great unknown.

What part of no danger don't you understand?

What cancer is to a healthy body is the same as a regulator is to a healthy nation that wants to do its job or live its life and be left alone from a bully disguised as a public servant.

Even the harms of passive smoking were manufactured by public health. A claim of danger brought about by junk science brought in over a billion dollars over the last 20 years of public health (taxpayer) and other special interest monies. The tobacco settlement brought in hundreds of billions.Would ongoing paydays like this be an incentive to cook the books? What do you think? It has been enough money to purchase a cultural shift in attitudes.

Critics complained they were always ignored, even when the most basic premise of science is the debate of the legitimacy of the claim. Why should e-cigarettes be any different? Junk science factories already have the gears humming because of the possible regulation by the FDA.

The science of risk assessment has been corrupt and badly broken since the mid-1980s and practitioners have been able to make up the rules of acceptable science as they went.

It is classic that e-cigarettes has given public health authorities everything they said they wanted — smoke with no odor or effects to bystanders and safer for smokers because they don't inhale anything burning to get nicotine. Are anti-smokers happy now? No.

An e-cigarette legitimizes smoking again, and that scares anti-smokers to death. This means they will lose absolute control of the debate. It also means that things will become much better for smokers. Public health will improve and smokers may well be saved from illness by quitting regular cigarettes.

It is a public health win-win for everyone who legitimately cares about social welfare. Many cities and states have banned them or are in the process of trying to or taxing them like a tobacco cigarette, which is not in the real public interest. Real lives could be at stake.

The FDA is now taking public comment through July 9 about the possible regulation of e-cigarettes and it invites your comments. Go to www.regulations.gov and do a search for e-cigarette regulation by the FDA to leave a comment.

If public health agencies are no longer interested in everyone's best interests, including smokers, it is time for massive layoffs so we can start over.

Dave Pickrell, president of the nonprofit Smokers Fighting Discrimination Inc., writes

from Katy, Texas.