What would motivate authority to demonize harm reduction?

Money.

Vaping has been proven successful at getting smokers off of cigarettes and keeping them off.

If smoking rates drop because of vaping then the states get less money.

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Ignoring the purpose of MSA

In the first section of the MSA, this agreement was made “to avoid the further expense, delay , incovenience, burden and uncertainty of continued litigation” by the state against the tobacco industry for expenses occured to Medicaid as a result of smoking.

Unfortunately, the MSA did not make provisions for how the MSA money is to be spent.

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MSA protects the 4 tobacco companies

Since the 4 tobacco giants entered an agreement to pay the state though the MSA, other tobacco companies are to be penalized by the state for doing business. So, since vaping helps smokers get off of cigarettes (which would lower MSA payments) the states catigorized vaping as tobacco.

Vaping is no more tobacco than vitamin C is an orange.

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Spending money before payments

Some of the state governments issued bonds based on the projections for future MSA payments. Unfortunately, they underestimated the rate at which smokers would stop smoking which means the payments were lower than they banked on. Those payments were short to pay the bonds when due.

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CDC contradicts their evidence

As a national health authority, the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a responsibility to report on the facts. During the lung injury outbreak, despite the growing evidence that THC cartridges were the cause, the CDC alluded that nicotine eliquid was to blame. They are guilty of confirmation bias.

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Fake news

The United Kingdom (UK) promotes vaping for smokers. They are different than most of the world because they reviewed the science on vaping before the global false narrative got to them. The lies were so pervasive that even their citizens became misinformed.

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The lies are working

The pervasive misinformation has successfully convinced the public that eliquid is a source of EVALI. The lies convinced 13% of people that vaping is MORE harmful than smoking, The public now demand tobacco harm reduction bans.

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For over 20 years, RealClearPolicy has been reviewing US domestic policy and analyzes “the most pivotal information on the day’s need-to-know issues”. They reviewed how the CDC handled EVALI in their article titled, Heads Should Roll at CDC after Botched Vaping Investigation.

Filter is a nonprofit, their mission is to …”advocate through journalism for rational and compassionate approaches to drug use, drug policy and human rights”. Their critique of how CDC handled EVALI is titled, Vapes and Lung Disease: The CDC’s Lesson in How Not to Handle an Illness Outbreak.