There was a time when vaping – the practice of using a small, electronic device to inhale vapor – was thought to be the public health miracle of the half-century. While not quite up there with the polio vaccine or the still elusive cure for cancer, it proved a successful substitute for cigarette smokers among whom more traditional cessation therapies had failed.

Now, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the anti-smoking bureaucrats embedded within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (who seem to think they have a say over anything people inhale) and the corporate entities are known collectively as “Big Tobacco” are making common cause on efforts to crush the emerging vaping industry.

The complaints being lodged – that vaping liquids are offer in flavors attractive to children, that vaping devices are too easy for minors to obtain, and that vaping is unhealthy in and of itself – are of the kind the denizens of the Nannystate are fond of making. They say things like that all the time about consumer products they have in their sights.

What they’re not saying is that vaping – which, like cigarettes, can be a nicotine delivery system – is perhaps a hundred times safer than traditional smoking. It literally saves lives, as a new study funded by Cancer Research UK demonstrates.

Loren Kock, a Ph.D. research in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London, observes that “E-cigarettes have the potential either to decrease or increase health inequalities depending on levels of smoking cessation.” The study he directed, published in mid-October in Addiction, is the first to look at the link between socioeconomic status and vaping devices.

What they found, Kock said, was from 2014 to 2016 e-cigarette use among smokers was generally higher among those from more affluent socioeconomic groups, while those from so-called disadvantaged groups were around half as likely to use one. By 2017, however, as products became both cheaper and more readily available, the gap disappeared.

Interestingly, the research uncovered different patterns among long-term ex-smokers, with those from “socioeconomically disadvantaged groups” at least twice as likely to be using e-cigarettes and other devices as smoking cessation aides. Those from upper-income cohorts, one may presume, have other alternatives available to them like hypnotherapy and directed action under a doctor’s care made possible by their having greater discretion in how their income is allocated.

The study has lessons for us here in the United States, chiefly that making vaping more expensive and making the materials harder to obtain may lead to an increase in smoking-related illness and death. If those on the lower end of the economic spectrum are, as the UCL study indicates, more reliant on vaping devices to stop smoking then more of them will contract lung cancer and other illnesses linked to cigarette smoking. And, being from the lower economic cohorts, expense related to their care are more likely to be borne by the taxpayer – since their healthcare is more likely to be provided to this group through Medicare and Medicaid.

It all may seem like circular logic. Some politicians want to tax vaping as cigarettes are taxed, banking on the revenue it will generate to fund all kinds of programs. Others want to destroy it before it becomes ubiquitous because they imagine it to be a health risk, never mind that the health risks connected to cigarette smoking are much greater and more expensive. And some want to regulate this emerging industry because that’s just what they do – sort of like the guy who worked for the EPA in the original Ghostbusters.

Cancer Research UK Policy Manager George Butterworth said of the study that “The evidence so far shows that e-cigarettes are far less harmful than tobacco and can be effective in helping people to stop smoking.”

He’s right – and the government should be doing everything it can to help this new technology take root and save lives rather than trying to put it back on the shelf to gather dust.

A farm bill passed in the House and Senate including provisions for industrialized hemp meaning small farmers could be seeing more green.

This farm bill is said to empower struggling farmers through industrialized hemp cultivation, and Kentucky farmers are not newcomers to this game.

Many farmers have been waiting to add a new crop to their bag, and with U.S, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s backing of the bill among others Kentucky farmers could see a boost through industrialized hemp production.

“How does a small farmer like me make a living,” says NE Farm and 5 Mile Marker owner Paul Glover.

Some Kentucky farmers are struggling, but with a farm bill passing industrialized hemp could be added to their list of crops helping small farmers compete with big corporations.

Paul Glover owns Ne farms and Mile Marker No. 5 in Hawesville and says the farm bill would help small farmers, and others.

“We produce an oil a tincture if you will that helps people with any neurological disease. Parkinson’s disease, children that have epilepsy it has stopped their seizures cold, and that is one of the big reasons I have been doing this for the past five years,” says Glover.

Kentucky isn’t new to the industrialized hemp world with research and pilot programs in recent years.

“Kentucky did have a four or five year advantage over other states such as North Carolina and Tennessee and if a few of the other states, but they have been climbing up the ladder extremely rapidly. We are still plotting along and we are still trying to figure out the program,” says Glover.

With the bill moving forward things could be looking up for farmers watching the bill closely for years.

Glover says, “I’m sure it will help keep competitive with these other states who are coming out of the wood work.”

The farm bill would also add crop insurance helping farmers like Glover who have taken big hits over the years.

“I was out probably about $12,000 dollars of my product which runs into a substantial amount of money I had no recourse. Crop insurance will help and it will also help the regulatory people in the U.S.D.A to help the farmer,” says Glover.

Industrialized hemp could be the green cash cow Kentucky farmers need.

“They can grow industrial hemp and if they market it correctly or sell it to the right individual or the right processor they can once again have a viable small farm,” says Glover.

Aside from the hemp stipulations the farm bill also fully protects crop insurance, makes significant improvements to rural broadband, and implements key changes to SNAP the supplemental nutrition assistance program.

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