Another good read. Careful though. It could be a tear jerker. Was for me.
I don’t care about me.
I’m an eliquid manufacturer in the vapor industry. Well, I used to be, until today, when I became a
tobacco product manufacturer in the tobacco industry.
I don’t care about me. I can stockpile enough eliquid of any flavor for myself and my wife and my friends and my family until we all die of old age. I have enough hardware to last decades, and the technical knowhow to fix any of it if it breaks.
I don’t care about me. I’ll be fine.
I do care about 9 million vapers though, and more importantly,
40 million at-risk smokers.
They won’t be fine.
In 90 days, all technological advancement in the industry will grind to a halt.
No new mods.
No new atomizers.
No new tanks.
No new flavors.
No new anything.
This could mean that the next big step in devices,
that may make it even easier for a smoker to successfully quit, may not make it to market. That obscure flavor that a smoker has been looking for to finally make the switch stick, may not be available. These products may not make it to market due to the cost associated with doing so, a cost out of reach for everyone except Big Tobacco.
In 2009, FDA reported to Congress that they would
examine the best way to regulate, promote, and encourage the development of “innovative products and treatments” to reduce harm associated with continued tobacco use.
The vapor industry did just that, all by ourselves.
We created, innovated, promoted, and self regulated a solution to the tobacco problem plaguing our country, and the world. Now that we have laid the groundwork, FDA is handing
our industry over to an organization that kills 480,000 people each year in the USA alone.
Big Tobacco.
Big Tobacco is not the vapor industry.
The
vapor industry is grassroots, built from the ground up by people who care and have passion for saving the lives of millions, and putting public health first. The
vapor industry doesn’t make $90 billion dollars a year like Big Tobacco, so we can’t stay in and pay the cost of doing business.
So we will all go out of business, two to three years from now, because that is how our government works. This is a bailout of the tobacco industry to help them offset losses caused by decreased cigarette usage, and the rise of vaping.
These regulations wouldn’t affect me if the
FDA-approved patches and gum actually worked back when I needed them to. I tried them on many occasions when attempting to quit my 31 year smoking habit. On March 29th 2014, I finally did quit when I bought my first e-cigarette. I wrote about that amazing day two years ago,
here and
here.
If the gum or patch had worked,
as the manufacturer and FDA advertised it would, this would all be out of sight and out of mind,
much like it is to the non-smokers and non-vapers in America. I would just be an ex-smoker, and this regulation wouldn’t directly affect me.
I’m glad that didn’t happen.
If it had, I wouldn’t have helped thousands of smokers and vapers.
I wouldn’t have met hundreds of wonderful people in our industry.
I would have far less people in my life I call friends and family.
We are now expected to believe that
FDA-approved e-cigarettes manufactured by Big Tobacco will be effective at tobacco harm reduction, and will benefit public health.
They won’t.
We are expected to think this won’t affect 100,000 jobs at 20,000 businesses in America.
It will.
We are expected to sit by, and watch our industry die.
We won’t.
We are expected to sit by and watch Americans die.
We can’t.
If you don’t vape, don’t smoke, or never smoked, you may think this doesn’t affect you.
It does.
Look at your circle of friends, and your family. Do any of them smoke or vape? Do they know someone who does? Do you work with someone who does?
Most likely the answer is “Yes”.
Somewhere, someone you know, will die early from a tobacco related disease.
FDA approves it.
in the US it is Rampant
