You are assuming that vaping is comparable to smoking in terms of danger. It isn't. Vaping is incredibly safe. The only people who have gotten sick or died have

You are assuming that vaping is comparable to smoking in terms of danger. It isn't. Vaping is incredibly safe. The only people who have gotten sick or died have been using black market THC cartridges. Smoking kills around 400,000 Americans per year. If you make vapes harder to acquire than cigarettes, you will cause mass death. Cigarettes are available without a prescription. You can get them at any gas station, corner store, or supermarket. If vaping isn't as convenient or as available, you will get more smokers and worse health outcomes. Again, a 2% increase in the number of smokers in the US is 9,000 deaths per year. I understand where you're coming from. It certainly doesn't feel good to let a bunch of teenagers get hooked on vapes. But you are weighing a hypothetical, unlikely harm against a concrete ongoing harm that is several thousand times larger in magnitude. One's intuitions simply can't be trusted in these cases.