Event in London: Will regulation ruin a free market?

[Jessica99]

A fascinating (and free) event is coming up on May 25th at 6.30pm at the Institute for Economic Affairs in London (nearest tubes Westminster and St James' Park)

Speakers include: Mark Pawsey MP, Lorien Jollye, Fraser Cropper, Ian Green and Christopher Snowdon

There will be wine before and afterwards

Here's the IEA link with more information and details on how to register for the event: link

Here's Dick Puddlecote with more info on it:


Regular readers here might have detected my suspicions that the tobacco control movement has absolutely nothing to do with health, but what of other concerns?



While most of the focus on Article 20 of the Tobacco Products Directive has been about its effect on health, there is also the very real damage that it will do to successful businesses for no valid health reason whatsoever. The industry which has sprung up around e-cigs and vaping has been an almost perfect free market which has driven progress and innovation at a breakneck pace, to the benefit of manufacturers, vendors and consumers alike. The TPD threatens to pull the handbrake up on all of that.......

 

[evan le'garde]

If regulation puts those smalltime vendors, who sell Vegetable Glycerine and/or Propylene Glycol, cotton pads, coil wire etc for extortionate prices, out of business then that's their own fault.

The industry has been out of control since it began with every little chancer and opportunist taking full advantage of new users naivety of e cigarettes. We all know how much it costs for say 10ml of premade e liquid. And anyone who's been vaping for long enough knows how much it costs to make. And only a little research would enlighten most if not everyone.

I can go to ebay and buy 5 litres of VG for £17. If i went shopping at any small online e cig retailer i'd find 100ml of VG on sale for about £3. So you do the maths. And other items being sold by e cig vendors such as cotton pads for about £3 for half a dozen when you can buy an entire pack of 140 for less than that from a more legitimate source including random vendors on ebay.

So if these regulations have been designed specifically to put these types of retailers out of business then i'd say it's not such a bad thing.
We'll just have to wait and see.