It must be difficult to be a politician and discuss e-cigarettes. On one hand you want toappear tough as you get on the bandwagon and start criticizing the product. On the otherhand you can’t wait for the moment when e-cigarettes start bringing in tax revenue to get youout of the latest mess your policies have landed you in.That’s the situation in Indiana as their Attorney General Greg Zoeller introduced a legislativeproposal. The aim is to see vape shops regulated and licensed by the state’s Alcohol andTobacco Commission. That’s despite the lack of either tobacco or alcohol in e-cigarettes.This will lead to the taxation of e-cigarettes by the same level applied to tobacco products –24 percent of the wholesale price. Just for good measure the product will also be included inIndiana’s state-wide smoking ban, even though there’s no smoke just vapor.When you find out just what they plan using the tax revenue for, you might just fall off yourchair.Zoeller is concerned about the fact that we don’t have much knowledge of “some of thefuture problems we might expect.” It’s a similar feeling I have when voting politicians intooffice. The Attorney General continued: “We are here today to stop this trend in its tracksand we all refuse to stand by as a new generation gets (hooked) on nicotine.”One of the politicians sponsoring the legislation in the House is Rep. Ed Clere, who talksabout “the emerging threat of e-cigarettes.” I wonder what that “emerging threat” is. Could itbe the amazing help the product gives to people who have been poisoning themselves foryears with tobacco cigarettes?Zoeller said no one knows for sure how harmful the vapor emitted by e-cigarettes can be toan individual, but those who smoke them are likely to become addicted to the nicotine in thee-liquid. Notice how he l oves to talk about the ‘evils’ of e-cigarettes but omits anythingremotely positive. He won’t mention the comments of the study discovered that e-cigarettesaren’t as addictive as tobacco cigarettes and aren’t as toxic either.Will he mention the fact that users can vary the amount of nicotine in their e-cigarette and ifthey want to have one that is nicotine free? I’m not holding my breath on that one. TheAttorney General is also worried about e-cigarettes being a “new drug-delivery service”.Well, if people are using them for THC then that’s not the fault of the e-cigarette industry isit? It’s like banning cigarette papers because people can use them to smoke marijuanainstead of tobacco.Clere does say that “there is probably no question that e-cigs are safer than combustiblecigarettes” All that promise is ruined by his claim that “Fact is, all the research suggests theyare not safe, strictly speaking, and they do present a tremendous new public health hazardto our youth.” It’s a dangerous word “all” because surely Clere knows there are studies outthere that don’t go round saying e-cigarettes “are not safe.”He also says “essentially, we’re defining e-cigarettes as a tobacco product.” We all knowwhy he wants to do that, it’s simply so he can adopt the laws used for those products for e-cigarettes. That makes it oh so easy for politicians to pass laws against e-cigarettes andstart taxing the product. Bizarrely, Clere says that tax revenue received from e-cigarettes would beused for tobaccocessation and prevention programs.Perhaps those programs will suggest trying e-cigarettes to help stop using tobaccocigarettes only for the users to complain because of the sudden price increase in theproduct. Then they’ll just go back to smoking tobacco but of course politicians don’t thinkabout that do they?