................I'm keen to address the key waypoints in the development of the technology, notably in terms of products coming to market, arrival of second and third generation devices.............
Scroll to the bottom of this page for a full listing of the equipment progressions:
Vaping Terminology
In general discussion, these stages are much-simplified. Usually, people say that minis were generation 1, eGos and mods were gen 2, and VV devices (now more properly call APVs, since they are clearly no longer mods) are gen 3. Using such broad groups allows anything subsequent to be a gen 3 type (including VW types, high-power boxmods, etc.).
To talk of regulatory developments means to speak of specific countries:
1. USA
In the USA, the FDA tried to ban ecigs in 2010 by means of an import ban and a pharmaceutical license requirement. This failed at law, with a landmark decision by Judge Leon that has subsequently been repeated about 6 times in EU countries. In the US, the appeal went all the way up to the last court below the Supreme Court, with universal backing from every judge in every court for Judge Leon's decision (a total of 13 judges all in favour of overturning the FDA's action).
The FDA was very soon thereafter, in 2010, given rights to regulate tobacco products, though the two things were unrelated as the tobacco issue had been ongoing for years. Congress took the decision that ecigs must be a tobacco product or a medicinal product, and as the latter was struck down by the courts, the tobacco classification would be used by the FDA. The option to remain as a consumer product was not allowed. Note that in the EU, consumer products are very strictly regulated and somewhere between 17 and 21 statutes apply to ecigs (opinion varies); although in theory the same sort of thing applies in the US, since there is no local enforcement arm as in the UK for example with the Trading Standards system and the large number of local enforcement officers, in effect consumer products are unregulated, in practice, in the USA. It is true to say (in practice) that ecigs are unregulated in the USA, when this is the opposite of the case in the UK.
In order to regulate tobacco products, from scratch - there is no precedent - the FDA had to create a regulatory system. In order to bring ecigs into this system, as they are considered 'novel' products since they aren't cigarettes (and aren't tobacco products either, to be accurate), they had to issue a Deeming Proposal, to outline exactly how they would 'deem' ecig products to be tobacco products; how they would regulate them; how they would allow new products to be introduced; and by implication, how others would tax them. This process will result in regulations being implemented that are expected to kill off the independent ecig trade due to prohibitive costs, as it will cost millions to bring a single product to market, and the trade currently bring thousands of improvements and new products to market every year. So the effect will be to give the trade to those who can afford the bar to entry - the cigarette trade - and remove any product that is suitable for smokers to switch successfully to vaping and with any cost savings. Then, over time, ecigs can be virtually removed by regulation and taxation. This is mainly to protect cigarette sales in order to protect pharmaceutical sales (the drugs for treating all the smoking-generated disease) since the FDA is the world's best example of a regulatory-captured government agency; though obviously there are very large numbers of beneficiaries, and the main loser is public health.
US States
The States are desperate to protect cigarette sales, and this is a double necessity:
a) The tobacco tax revenues are critically important to them.
b) The MSA payments are equally important, and mean the difference between survival and economic chaos - especially in the worst-run States such as California and NY.
This is why you will see the Attorneys General fighting as hard as they possibly can to get ecigs banned. They even have a personal financial motive.
The almighty dollar
The clearest aspect of US ecig regs is the huge, almost incalculable, funds available to those who will toe the pharma-tax line. The MSA funds and NIH funds are so enormous that it is hard to see who would be honest enough to reject the money. The funding creates multi-millionaire liars like Glantz,
who received $6 million just for last year. If you don't understand this, research MSA funds (over $200
billion assigned up to 2023) and the NIH funds (see Rodu today for example:
http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/nih-funding-stifles-tobacco-harm.html )
The money paid for lies is simply extraordinary: one researcher got $850,000 basically for junk science based on watching YouTube videos of vapers. This is the home of junk science, where people can become a millionaire if they are prepared to lie for money and don't care how many people die as a result.
2. EU
Tobacco in the EU is regulated by the EU Health Commission via the TPD. Commissioner Dalli rewrote this in order to ban ecigs by use of a pharmaceutical license categorisation. Dalli was sacked for corruption soon after, but the TPD rewrite remained on the books. It failed in the EU Parliament as MEPs rejected the pharmaceutical classification for ecigs (it would clearly also have failed at law).
Plan B was then revealed: in secret committees the TPD was rebuilt, classifying vapourisers as a tobacco product, and passed by the EU Council and The Council of Ministers (as this is classed as a health matter, this means a council of the 28 health ministers). The EU Parliament passed it as a compromise bill since it looked reasonable to some, and it allowed all the tobacco law changes to go through without problem, this time round.
The new TPD must be implemented by all 28 countries by May 2016. The EU law is 'transposed' or 'mirrored' into national law in this process. We cannot tell how this will be done in the UK, but it potentially allows most current products to be banned, all international web sales banned, all advertising banned, and all web advertising banned. Because ecig web advertising is banned under the TPD, it will almost certainly be used to close all ecig vendor websites, as just existing means they are advertising; if you can't have tobacco sales websites then you can't have ecig websites, as they are now 'a tobacco product'.
TW ecigs (Totally Wicked) has started the legal process to have it struck down, and their advisers are not using health as the challenge but EU law procedural issues, such as restraint of trade etc.
Again, this is going to be an effective way to kill off ecigs, perhaps not in year 1 (as a lot of enforcement procedures will need to be set up first) but certainly in later years. The very small number of inefficient products left will be given to the cigarette trade as the costs will be prohibitive for anyone else.
The goal is: retail sales only, with no advertising, and only a few of the most inefficient products left on the market, at very high cost, with taxes equivalent to (or greater than) tobacco taxes. They failed in an outright ban, but it appears that a 99.9% ban will be permitted. This is a tremendous win for the gov/pharma/tobacco/fake charity machine as they can now say that ecigs are permitted and were not banned.
3. UK
The UK is currently unique in several respects:
a) Ecig products are already strictly regulated by at least 17 laws (some say 21), and the regulations are enforced at local level, on all retailers including website operators. We are not aware of anywhere else in the world that this applies.
b) The most senior public health figures, even those in tobacco control, widely and publicly support ecigs. There are one or two notable exceptions, but they are not given too much credence even by the media, as the issues are fairly obvious (one is clearly a spokesperson for GSK pharmaceuticals). When John Britton [1], Robert West, Peter Hajek and other say that ecigs are to be supported, it is very hard for less prominent staff to disagree.
Even CRUK, a major pharma beneficiary and therefore a primary distributor of the usual lies and propaganda, has been told to shut up by these eminent professors - and CRUK have had to bite their tongue and do as told. They will have to sacrifice some pharma funds, perhaps, but otherwise their chief medical backers will pull out, and the fallout would be hard to conceal. A cancer charity accused of promoting cancer by the most eminent professors in the land would be rather amusing to see - and their current massive TV advertising drive would become a joke, remarked on even in the Daily Fail, aka pharma propaganda central.
The UK situation really is unique in this respect, and we are eternally grateful to these medics - some of the few honest members of their profession at this level.
What remains to be seen is how the TPD is implemented, if it survives legal challenge. Since the Department of (Pharmaceutical) Health does exactly as it is told by its paymasters in Geneva, the prospects are not good.
Elsewhere
That's the current US, EU and UK regulatory situation. As for the banana republics like Lithuania etc., they depend so much on tobacco tax revenues they don't even care about any apology or concealment of their actions to ban or tax ecigs out of contention in order to protect cigarette tax revenues.
The WHO
A fine collection of pharma whores, and one of the principal protectors of the cigarette trade. To discuss the detail is like discussing faeces, so I won't.
The role of the Public Health Industry
The propaganda needed to create a climate of fear in which it is seen as justifiable to tax new products that will (if left alone) remove smoking, and that are harmless when compared to smoking, is created and published by the Public Health Industry. This consists of fake charities, front groups and universities owned by pharma. Their spokespersons largely control the main media presence, often helped by the fact that the power of pharma's advertising funds is crucial to the media now. Where Chantix is advertised, no support for THR will be found.
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[1] There is a clear argument to be made that Prof Britton, Chair of the Royal College of Physicians' Tobacco Group, is the world's senior tobacco control spokesman. He is the direct descendent, if you like, of Prof Sir Richard Doll, who started it all. To paraphrase Britton slightly: "If all UK smokers switched to ecigs we would save five million lives, just among those alive today, just in the UK". No one has had the temerity (or stupidity) to contradict him.
