You come right to the point, don't cha?
We know but not the public at large, the extent of the collusion and the objective, cartelism. Big Tobacco's strategy has been to encourage the FDA to apply the same legal strictures to vaping as to its industry as evidenced by Altria Groups recommendations to the FDA in June 2013. As Oliver J Olinger wrote then in his blog Juice Connoisseur,
"Tobacco companies go to extreme measures to ensure that they provide consistent product performance and reduced variability."
And this is what we'll now see in minimalist form. It has been the objective all along to steer us into proving them all right in the excesses and extremes of unbridled diversity and thereby making the necessity of regulation unavoidable.
Question is who is the enemy among us, abetting the agenda, expecting to survive the threshing?
Good luck all.
There's a difference between a company (companies) getting together with gov't in order to enact legislation/regulation in order to directly benefit that company(ies). A difference between that and gov't writing legislation/regulation where companies who may see a benefit from what is written, and in this case, sending 'comments' into the regulatory agency giving their viewpoints.
I've discussed this in answer to Lara C's post here:
TVECA post table of contents for Deeming Final Rule
My reply:
TVECA post table of contents for Deeming Final Rule
So while tobacco companies may be in better position to take advantage of the deeming, that doesn't necessary mean (and I don't think it does), that they helped write the deeming which was a product of Waxman, a Democrat majority in both Houses and a Democrat President who, along with certain Republicans, have been on the backs of tobacco from the beginning.
Those who wrote the Act and the Deeming, had very little concern - at the time - with ecigarettes. It is why I make the point above between a 'partnership' involved in 'crony capitalism/corporatism' vs. some companies seeing they could benefit from the deeming and supplying comments that would tend to help them. In the last case, they're no different than the 'comments' made by ALA, ACA, Robert Woods Johnson and others that sent in comments pro-deeming. They all benefit. (or think they will).
So yeah, I get right to the point :- ) vs. putting out some populist anti-BT/BP view that in my estimation doesn't hold much water and doesn't represent the actual reality of how the Tobacco Act and the Deeming came about.
And with the information that we have looked at as far as what products actually existed (and were sold in the US) at the grandfather date, I don't see tobacco being able to use any of their cigalike products as predicate products either - depending how detailed the FDA goes on what needs to be similar and what they may 'deem' as not. :- )
IF the FDA truly intends to shut down vaping, there's a good chance that nothing will be grandfathered and all 'new products' will have to go through an expensive application process, that likely, only tobacco companies could afford.
So you can cite all the fawning (and self-interested) 'comments' of Altria, RJR, Njoy, Lorillard sent in, but that doesn't, in any common definition of the phrase, mean that it's "crony capitalism". It only appears to be that some companies and organizations are taking advantage of what the FDA has written.
Just to be clear, since I mentioned them above - the ACA, ALA, Robert Wood Johnson and other anti-smoking groups likely did have some input into the legislation, but it was from an
anti-smoking view, rather than an anti-vaping view that simply didn't exist at the time. And it was more about pushing an agenda than financially benefitting - other than perhaps gaining contributions from people of like mind.
