“Social engineering is not a scientific discipline, but you wouldn’t know that to hear the impresarios of the administrative state talk about the jobs they’ve been trusted to perform.
“During the pandemic, the institutions ostensibly devoted to the promotion of public health drank deeply from the well of their own sanctimony, and they’ve not yet recovered their senses. If the war the nation’s regulatory apparatuses are waging on nicotine is any indication, that tumultuous period in American history has taught them no lessons…
“I’m torn here,” CNBC host Joe Kernen opened a interview with former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. “People want to do what they want to do is one thing.” You can sense the incoming “but” that will invalidate Kernen’s perfunctory nod toward personal liberty. “But,” he inexorably continued, “Nicotine. It doesn’t even do anything for you.”
“The well-intended technocrat may think it is their mission to save the public from themselves. Wouldn’t it be nice if fewer people developed a nicotine addiction in the first place? Of course, it would. But these efforts to nudge the public in the direction of what’s good for them will have depraved effects, most of which will undermine both the objectives of public health officials and trust in the institutions they command.
“When you can go into a vape store and buy bubblegum kush-flavored marijuana derivatives but not this one tobacco-flavored nicotine product, and only because the government has a vendetta against its manufacturer, the government has become an engine of hypocrisy. This abuse of the public trust and misuse of authority will have broader implications for the health of the American social compact.”
You can read more about the administration’s war against nicotine here.
