There was a clear link to vaping bootleg THC carts and death. The moral panic involved blaming all vaping products despite that link. This panic led to bans on some vaping products in Michigan, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Montana, Washington and Oregon.

IIRC, that link was not firmly established early on (though I had seen it hypothesized).

NY State announced a link on Sept. 5th. The earliest ban was in late September. (https://www.health.ny.gov/press/releases/2019/2019-09-05_vap...).

The CDC told everyone to "consider" stopping vaping immediately, despite the lack of evidence it was linked to commercial ecigs. It sure seemed like a beautiful play by big tobacco (which manufactures packs of cigarettes for 6 cents a piece -- and would rather kill vaping than try to compete in tech). Note that CDC was swept out by Trump, to avoid fingering handguns as a public health threat.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6841e3.htm

Yeah I'm not sure what's "moral" about people vape users randomly falling ill. Maybe doctors quickly blaming weed could've come off as a moral judgement, but I think it was backed up with enough anecdotal evidence to make that correlation.

Also, I don't think a dozen people falling ill over a year is comparable to the thousands impacted by this and hundreds dead within 2-3 months. It's definitely on a completely different scale here.

Oh, it's because everyone's kids were vaping and no one could control it. But now parents can say that vaping will kill you with a straight face. Literally, this is how and why it all went down.