Now that I've secured a win in the Most Depressing Header category at this year's ECF Awards....
The only way this regulatory drama isn't going to produce disastrous results is through a legislative remedy. The whole reason this is such an absurd exercise is because, with the existing laws as currently written, there is no legal/statutory middle ground between "medical nicotine device" and "tobacco product." Trying to shoehorn e-cigs into either of those categories, as we already know, will inevitably result in an avalanche of bad policy that's not going to benefit anyone (unless you're a tobacco company executive, in which case you can feel free to disregard), and which will almost certainly persist for many decades, which misguided public health policy nearly always does.
When you get right down to it, this isn't really the FDA's fault. They can only operate within the legal framework they're given, so even if they wanted to, they can't just unilaterally carve out a new product class and place e-cigs in it. They're calling these things tobacco products not necessarily out of incompetence or malice, but because it's the only option available to them.
What does this mean? It means the Congress needs to do its job, and give the agency a better set of options when the current set proves incompatible with effective, common sense-based (or, better yet, science-based) regulatory policy. Laws, especially ones that deal with public health, are supposed to evolve with and adapt to changing circumstances and unforeseen developments. The current regulatory playbook probably made sense in 1998. It didn't make sense in 2009, and it makes even less sense in 2014. It is, more so every day, a fatal impediment to the implementation of good policy that might eventually contribute to the saving of millions of lives.
It's too bad it's September of a midterm election year, because nobody in the House or Senate is going to want any part of any remotely controversial subject until early 2015. But still, that's no reason why we as voters shouldn't be telling them they need to act on this, because they do, because they're the only ones who can. Even many ANTZ would probably agree that the current regulatory framework is increasingly inadequate for dealing with the matters that currently must be dealt with. By the time the next Congress is seated, we have to do everything we can, both individually and collectively, to get this on their radar.
The only way this regulatory drama isn't going to produce disastrous results is through a legislative remedy. The whole reason this is such an absurd exercise is because, with the existing laws as currently written, there is no legal/statutory middle ground between "medical nicotine device" and "tobacco product." Trying to shoehorn e-cigs into either of those categories, as we already know, will inevitably result in an avalanche of bad policy that's not going to benefit anyone (unless you're a tobacco company executive, in which case you can feel free to disregard), and which will almost certainly persist for many decades, which misguided public health policy nearly always does.
When you get right down to it, this isn't really the FDA's fault. They can only operate within the legal framework they're given, so even if they wanted to, they can't just unilaterally carve out a new product class and place e-cigs in it. They're calling these things tobacco products not necessarily out of incompetence or malice, but because it's the only option available to them.
What does this mean? It means the Congress needs to do its job, and give the agency a better set of options when the current set proves incompatible with effective, common sense-based (or, better yet, science-based) regulatory policy. Laws, especially ones that deal with public health, are supposed to evolve with and adapt to changing circumstances and unforeseen developments. The current regulatory playbook probably made sense in 1998. It didn't make sense in 2009, and it makes even less sense in 2014. It is, more so every day, a fatal impediment to the implementation of good policy that might eventually contribute to the saving of millions of lives.
It's too bad it's September of a midterm election year, because nobody in the House or Senate is going to want any part of any remotely controversial subject until early 2015. But still, that's no reason why we as voters shouldn't be telling them they need to act on this, because they do, because they're the only ones who can. Even many ANTZ would probably agree that the current regulatory framework is increasingly inadequate for dealing with the matters that currently must be dealt with. By the time the next Congress is seated, we have to do everything we can, both individually and collectively, to get this on their radar.
