If a Billion users stood up and proudly proclaimed how great the e-cig is as a stop smoking aid it would make no difference to the laws on the books and legally, it could not, once you understand why the law is there and who it protects.
Only for legal reasons the e-cig cannot be sold or advertised as a stop smoking product by manufacturers and sellers. The using public has no such restrictions and should Not have.
I'll say it again, people don't understand the consequences if ecigs are recognized as a stop smoking device or a NRT ( nicotine replacement therapy ).
Are ecigs good for helping people to stop smoking? Absolutely !! But, claiming this allows the FDA to label ejuice and the hardware for delivery
as "Drugs". This allows them to develop all kinds of regulations and procedures for production and sales.
- Clinical drug trials, very expensive and could take years
- can make ejuice available by prescription only, like nicotine inhalers and other NRT's
- require ejuice to be mixed in a lab grade environment with all kinds of inspections and documented regulations
- ejuice can only be mixed by "certified" technicians, or worse, certified pharmaceutical lab techs
- all kinds of inspections for mnf of hardware and monitored documentation for compliance with regulations and quality control
- a lot of vendors use some kind of adhesive compound to stabilize components in a mod, how expensive do you think it would
be if these adhesives had to be tested for harmful emissions?! Or, if the employees had to wear the proper PPE ( personal protection equipment )
for protection against fumes from solder.
I saw a video on here that Leaford posted, showing the mnf facilities in China. Everything was lab grade equipment with people wearing
smocks, head covers, and footies. The production areas were kept spotless with controlled air locks like you would see in a clean
room for mnf computer chips or disease control. I'm sure China can produce products for such a cheap price because they already
had these facilities for mnf other products, they just had to re-purpose the production lines. The same way Big Pharma and Tobacco
already have the facilities for producing drugs and processing tobacco. It would cost them pennies compared to the expense
of setting up the necessary facilities to meet FDA regulations from scratch.
Do you see any current vendors being able to meet stringent FDA controls with their current facilities?!
While I would love to join you on that mountain top to proclaim to the world that I stopped smoking with the use of ecigs, and
encourage all smokers to leave behind evil tobacco. I am pragmatic enough to realize that this would play into the hands of the FDA.
We want the courts to keep agreeing with us that ecigs are a smoking alternative and should be regulated as tobacco, not drugs.
This allows for much looser regulations, and it behooves us to make sure that we don't provide any other ammunition for the FDA
by making sure that we control the purchase of ecigs. After all, "harming the kids" is the FDA's, and other detractors, biggest bullet
in targeting ejuice and ecigs in general.
Just to give you an example; if you post on a vendor website, "E-cigs are safer than smoking and help to stop smoking.", then the FDA can
claim that we are making false and misleading claims because there has been no clinical trials to verify these statements as facts.
If however, a vendor post the statement "E-juice does not contain many of the harmful chemicals that smoking tobacco produces,
and many users have stated that they were able to use ejuice as a smoking alternative.", then we are making claims that can
be defended and verified.
It may be cynical to point out that the only way we can defend ecigs is to twist our words to get the message across,
but hell, how do you think Big Tobacco has been able to keep cigarettes legal?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is issuing this advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) to obtain information related to the regulation of non-face-to-face sale and distribution of tobacco products and the advertising, promotion, and marketing of tobacco products. FDA is taking this action as part of its implementation of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act). FDA is requesting comments, data, research, or other information related to non-face-to-face sale and distribution of tobacco products; the advertising, promotion, and marketing of such products; and the advertising of tobacco products via the Internet, e-mail, direct mail, telephone, smart phones, and other communication technologies that can be directed to specific recipients.
