Jacob Grier

Jacob Grier writes about drinks, public policy, and other vices in Portland, Oregon.

The Carceral Politics of Menthol Prohibitionism

It’s hard to imagine that the country that gave birth to Big Tobacco may soon sentence Americans to prison for selling menthol cigarettes or flavored e-cigarettes. Yet in states that have forbidden these products, arrests and prosecutions are already occurring. The Food and Drug Administration is also expected to

Respecting the Agency of Smokers: the Liberalism of Harms Reduction and the Illiberalism of Prohibitionism

Two years ago, I published my book The Rediscovery of Tobacco, in which I made a case for taking a liberal approach to tobacco regulation with an emphasis on encouraging harm reduction. The timing coincided with a low point for the cause in the United States. A deadly outbreak of