One Toke over the Line for Vape Ban [PHIL-OSOPHY]

My advice is to sue the state government for overreach and legally challenge the Commonwealth in court for its ban on selling vaping products.

Some small business owners have poured their life savings into opening successful small vape shops, until media reports started surfacing lately about a mysterious vaping-related illness blamed for the deaths of nine people nationally and hundreds getting sick.

I'm told if you like to experiment with illicit drugs, you run the risk of dying because of your stupidity. But why should their actions punish store owners from selling a legal product?

Gov. Charlie Baker's ban is the most stringent in all the country, effectively shutting down 300 small mom-and-pop vape shops across the state, affecting thousands of employees and adult customers, many who have switched from smoking cigarettes to vaping. There's no way a small store can withstand four months of no business. Tell the landlord or the electric company or an employee to wait four months for their money.

What the governor did was completely ridiculous and preposterous. It's a regressive health policy and it needs to see the sunlight of the courts.

Who was the genius who thought through this ban so that folks suffering from the pain of cancer and other diseases wouldn't be able to get their medical marijuana to vape? That's just plain imbecilic and pointless.

This backdoor prohibition will shut down legal businesses and send thousands of ex-cigarette smokers back to deadly cigarettes. And all because some jerks concocted their own deadly brew on the black market making counterfeit vaping products?

There is zero evidence that links any of the deaths to legal, top-shelf vaping juice sold in these tax-paying businesses. So, as they say on TV, see you in court, sonny!

Phil Paleologos is the host of The Phil Paleologos Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Contact him at phil@wbsm.com and follow him on Twitter @PhilPaleologos. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.