CB - Trying to google or follow the UK's ban is almost as hard as researching the FDA's actions in the US.
It's simple - let me give you a guide.
1. A government agency wishes to please its masters by increasing control over consumers and removing choices with a potential cost to government, which is in line with general policy at the time. It also removes a threat to pharmaceutical industry profits, which had resulted in embarrassing meetings between senior government officers and pharma reps, as the pharma people are big contributors and are sure to pass their pain on to the recipients of their contributions.
2. The decision is made to ban e-cigarettes, by the simple expedient of requiring an expensive licensing procedure that starts around £100k ($150). This will successfully remove 99.9% of products from the market. It also has the excellent knock-on effect of giving the pharma people a big commercial advantage in the new market, which in time should therefore be controllable by them.
3. The tobacco industry is also very pleased by the result and make their pleasure known in due course.
4. Due to operational niceties it is necessary to go through a consultation process before the ban is announced. This has no effect on the decision, which has already been made.
5. One or two other government agencies and officers perform a CYA exercise just in case it goes pear-shaped further down the road.
6. The ban is announced and all but one UK supplier shut down.
7. They start up again offshore and it's business as usual. Except that now there is no regulation of the products, as was previously the case, since the national consumer product sales regulation agency, through its local agencies, was successfully regulating the products by testing and analysis - but this cannot apply to products posted in from overseas.
So the consumer suffers in any number of ways: prices go up, choice is reduced, all regulation is removed, and a number of people are forced back on to cigarettes and an early death. But please remember, public health was never a factor in this decision, to think otherwise would be extremely naive.
8. After a decent interval, the government agency originally responsible for the ban starts making waves about 'dangerous illegal medicines' being freely imported. Colleagues see the benefits of stopping these imports, as the pharma people are very generous.
9. Personal imports of these dangerous products are banned, and everyone is happy (except the consumers and and all those sentenced to death - but they don't matter as they have no voice and no money). The offshore suppliers mainly shut down, except for those who are willing to go the whole nine yards and import illegally. There's generally enough of those, though, if demand is high enough; and since making the use of consumer choices such as decaf coffee or ecigarettes illegal by the individual is a step too far even for the newly-empowered Western Stalinists, the demand will be there.
10. Eventually, the public get tired of the Stalinist government style and vote them out. Ah, wait, that happened already.
11. After a few years, there are so many consumers of the dangerous unlicensed medicines that the new, more easily-embarrassed government has to do a U-turn and legitimize them. By then, pharma has a major stake in the market and tobacco have their own consumer brands ready. Everybody is happy.
There now - is that more easily understood?
