Now: the entire area is pretty much all back to mega-unhealthy cigarettes. Just an overwhelming quantity of smokable tobacco. There might be one vape in there somewhere.
This is in health-conscious California. Good job, team, we did it, we saved everyone's health.
I do think that getting rid of the vapes and Zyns is an improvement for people’s health. The idea that vapes can be used to switch of tobacco is basically pro-vape propaganda at this point; we know that far more people are using nicotine thanks to these products, people who would otherwise not use it at all.
It worked for me, and it's in large part because while vapes contain nicotine, they don't contain the MAOIs that cigarettes do. MAOIs make the nicotine significantly more addictive. Subjectively, cigarettes were night and day different in how habit-forming they were. The vapes are a step down and much easier to quit.
In terms of health, it's ridiculous: we know for a fact that tobacco smoke contains freaking Polonium-210 and Lead-210, extremely nasty radioactive isotopes. These aren't in vapes. These alone should be the end of the argument for whether smokable tobacco should be sold on an industrial scale for human consumption.
Nicotine by itself isn't the four alarm fire for public health that smoking tobacco is. If we're going to go full nanny state and ban non-smoked nicotine, then we may as well ban caffeine and alcohol. Realistically, however, the authoritarian move on this isn't justified by the risk level.