Renaming a substance can free it from regulations

Evidence

To avoid any likeness, they call cigarettes “vape pens” and “hookahs,” referring to a waterpipe that vaporizes flavored tobacco. Surprisingly, several states have ruled that e-cigarettes are not a tobacco product. In camouflaging prose, many other states have ruled that e-cigarettes do not belong in the “tobacco category” (Richtel, 2014d). This is a peculiar exemption given that nicotine, which is extracted almost entirely from tobacco, is almost the sole ingredient in e-cigarettes. These rulings say Bandura_1e_ch05.indd 251

more about the power of the tobacco industry than about the contents of e-cigarettes. Linguistic denicotinization frees e-cigarettes from the excise taxes and regulations imposed on traditional cigarettes.

— Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1718

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s broader theme of euphemistic labeling as a moral disengagement mechanism — and to my notes on how language shapes institutional category boundaries (cf. law merchant reputation work). — connects to: Rulers can make odious things acceptable simply by renaming them — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 74
• SEED: Article angle: ‘linguistic denicotinization’ as a general pattern — how industries relabel products (e.g., ‘plant-based,’ ‘natural’) to escape tobacco-style regulation.