I have a possible solution for us all!

[kr38tiv]

I have an idea that, without looking into it too deeply, will allow us to do what we have to do when we have/need to do it regarding submissions to the TGA/FDA, clinical trials, product development, licensing or whatever else needs attention, and that is to create an excise system of our own. This is how I imagine it:

1. We set up committees within the UK, USA, Australia, etc. that could/would be responsible for directing our efforts towards the legalisation of vaping (Nicotine Based) fluids/liquids.

2. Funding would be provided through a system that we create i.e. Manufacturers (That want to participate and benefit) would contribute % amount from sales towards whatever country has ordered the products, so it may look like this:

- 40% Sales to USA
- 30% Sales to UK
- 20% Sales to AU

from the proposed % contribution amount from the manufacturers total sales will be distributed according to the percentages above to the relevant committee treasurers.

3. The Distributors/Retailers would contribute % to the relevant countries that they sell into to their committee treasurers

4. Users/Customers would pay an excise of $ per order/item towards its country of purchase committee treasurer

or something like it....

Then this will surely help us as a unified group achieve our goals and have the financial capabilities to boot...

Just an idea so let me know what you guys/gals think..

Cheers...

 

[BradSmith]

Well it wouldn't hurt, but unfortunately there are a lot of big bucks in the tobacco industry and big Pharma as well.

What do we have to lose, besides out lives that is.

Great suggestion.

 

[kr38tiv]

@BradSmith - That's very true, the big 2 have virtually unlimited funds, but without some way of raising funds for our cause as a group, individually we don't stand a chance.

I personally spend approx. $450 /month now to fund my tobacco habit, add my misses to that (she smokes a little less) approx. $300 /month = $750 /month.

If we were to become full time vapers we could probably knock about 80% off of our spend every month.

My point is though, I could afford to pay a little excise towards the cause and still save a bundle...

I don't know how much it was costing or is still costing everyone else but I would assume similar figures.

 

[Rin]

Decent idea, don't think it would ever come to fruition. The reason? It's easier to simply ban the item (and profit margins from PVs would be marginal when compared to analogs/gums/patches/lozenges).

Stock up.

 

[kr38tiv]

Hi Rin thanks for your input, From the Regulators point of view yes, banning is much easier but that is not the perspective that I was taking with my suggestion.

Right now as I can see it we as individuals have no real financial substance to fight against or work with the regulators to get the "Nicotine" solution/liquid/juice we use in these devices to market legally or accepted at least to some degree.

So from a users perspective who purchases not only the devices but the liquids, paying just a little more for your liquid for example, won't break your bank and you would be contributing to the support and development (i.e Paying for Clinical Trials, legal costs, etc) of something you enjoy and for all intents and purposes want to buy and use freely.

Cheers...

 

[CtryBoy]

Great idea. Hell on the putting it into motion. Of course once you get a large well funded group you run into your own issues about what's important, what's acceptable (ban vs regulation drug device vs tobacco product) You see it gets more complicated than just get a pile of money and pick a fight. Clear goals, willingness to compromise in the face of total disaster, but not so quick to accept any offer no matter what it does to industry, consumer, or price as long as not total ban. FDA is notorious for giving approval letters that have a list of things a mile long you MUST do to keep approval. So although see the plus to a well funded lobby, just dealing with their success could make life hell for vapers. Tough proposition.

Should do like the guys in the OUTSIDE section of forum. Stock up and put our goodies in a vault in the artic so they cant take it away. Until they ban it I'm not brewing my own, but even though I'm not big on tobacco flavor at the moment, I'll make my own before I smoke the real things again or use one of those vaporizers next to the e cigs at my local 'shop'.

 

[lennonrevolver]

Them cig companies are scary rich, gonna be a long hard road.. enjoying it as much as I possibly can

 

[kr38tiv]

Great idea. Hell on the putting it into motion. Of course once you get a large well funded group you run into your own issues about what's important, what's acceptable (ban vs regulation drug device vs tobacco product) You see it gets more complicated than just get a pile of money and pick a fight. Clear goals, willingness to compromise in the face of total disaster, but not so quick to accept any offer no matter what it does to industry, consumer, or price as long as not total ban. FDA is notorious for giving approval letters that have a list of things a mile long you MUST do to keep approval. So although see the plus to a well funded lobby, just dealing with their success could make life hell for vapers. Tough proposition.

That is my point CtryBoy, that perhaps I didn't make clearly enough...A committee would help organise priority lists in their respective territories and all of us as members would get to decide/vote on specific actions. It is a big task no doubt and the question would be, "Is it worth it?" is it worth all the work to establish such a system.....The mention of the FDA was purely speculative as we may not need to travel that road, the funds raised through this proposed system would help with such things.

Should do like the guys in the OUTSIDE section of forum. Stock up and put our goodies in a vault in the artic so they cant take it away. Until they ban it I'm not brewing my own, but even though I'm not big on tobacco flavor at the moment, I'll make my own before I smoke the real things again or use one of those vaporizers next to the e cigs at my local 'shop'.

I'm not sure that would have the best or preferred long term outcome LOL!! Aren't we trying to prevent/stop the banning of these things?

 

[MoonRose]

I think our best bet is to swamp the media, politicians, physicians and communities with every positive reason we have for wanting the FDA to leave our e-cigs alone. Let them know that we refuse to just lay down and die because they want to force us back to analogs. We have to fight for our right to live.

 

[frisco]

If we take no action then that is what we will get. Our decision made for us! I live in WV. We are actively fighting King Coal in order to save our mountains, clean water and forests against mountain top removal. It's been a long haul with a lot of effort on the part of the activists. The progress has been slow but it's better than no progress. We can't just do nothing.

If we don't fight for what we believe in then we may as well just lie down and take what life hands us. I think you only have a right to complain if you are willing to put forth some effort, money or time towards making things different!

 

[Tober138]

If we take no action then that is what we will get. Our decision made for us!

If we don't fight for what we believe in then we may as well just lie down and take what life hands us. I think you only have a right to complain if you are willing to put forth some effort, money or time towards making things different!

Well said. Myself and other members of our community recently banded together, raised money, hit the press, hired an attorney and successfully fought a proposal taken to the city council to put a low-income housing development in our neighborhood. Griping and complaining did not help us - action did.

That said, what I think would truly help would be getting the funds, resources and people to organize formal clinical trials related to the use of e-cigs, looking at both safety as well as use as a smoking cessation device. For something such as this, people banding together is one thing, but having some clinical data gives us a way to directly counter the claims of the FDA and other groups trying to get these banned. Then again, I work for big, bad pharma - so maybe my viewpoint is a little biased.

 

[jj2]

The concept is good and we all want to do something to fight back, but getting it done is another question.
Basically that is why CASAA was formed and after it was, most everyone that was involved lost interest, and then, I bet 3/4 of the newbies don't even know it exist and it's got a forum at ECF.
They have tried several ways to fight back but the majority here have not participated.
Check them out, the link is below. So is the link where they are taking donations to fund testing.
I have donated, have you?

--------------------------------------------
Indiana or Georgia?? Act NOW!!
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...live-indiana-georgia-act-now.html#post1685232
--------------------------------------------
Consider me your recycling center for Njoy Pro, Smoking Everywhere Gold, Cloud 9, Smoke 51 Trio, and DSE103 useless batteries.
Other hardware if it’s still usable.
Those I loan out to/give to thank you.
----------------------------------------------
Support CASAA
CASAA | The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association
Don’t forget to donate to IVAQS research
CASAA.org

 

[D4rk50ul]

I actually prefer to eliminate my enemies by convincing them to fight for me. Wouldn't "big tobacco" be better off claiming that they have finally found a safer delivery method for their product? We could be buying pre-filled carts in the liquor stores manufactured by all the big brands. Since 75%+ of the cost of a pack of traditional cigarettes is tax, they could actually make a better profit with these due to the far reduced tax rates. Then it would be in THEIR best interest to have PV's labeled as "Safe" by the FDA to avoid huge tax rates and increase profits. I've always been under the impression that for most people and ALL companies, money is all that matters. Appeal to their greed and show them the potential money they could make by being in at the ground level of such a revolutionary product.

Say you pay $5 for a pack of smokes ($10 here), or you buy 4 pre-filled carts for $2.50. The profit on the far less taxed carts would actually be higher. Now they make money on both traditional cigarettes AND a safer alternative. Hell they could charge higher rates too, most people would pay MORE for a safer method. This of course wouldn't hurt the current market much because the hardware side would be too risky for them. As for the online sale of ejuice, it would require a business license and such to be sold legally I'm sure. That could be considered bad by some, but its the norm for every business nation wide.

I only have a couple concerns with this approach. They could use the FDA to ban privateering for the sake of quality control and basically corner the market instantly. Then you would need to meet strict guidelines to manufacture the ejuice. The other thing is that most appose or hate big tobacco, so having them touch the PV world even a little bit could taint it.

If you feel the need to flame me go ahead, it was a random thought and I'm new here anyway.

 

[Jonmo1]

It might be good for Big Tobacco...BUT there are other driving organizations..
The Pharmacutical companies...They don't want you to quit smoking.
I know, it's a terrible thing to say, but someone prove me wrong...

They say they want us to quit smoking, and they give us these wonderfull FDA approved devices like patches, gums and losenges that actually work for about 7% of the people who try them.
Woo hoo, way to go FDA and BP

They make more money by TREATING our cancer. They don't want to cure or prevent it.
They don't want us to stop smoking, that turns into fewer cancer patients paying big bucks for treatments.

I read on this forum somewhere a while ago that the last disease that was ever cured was polio, like 60 years ago or something. That's just a terrible success rate for all the research that they do (that we pay for).
They don't want to CURE or Prevent diseases, they want to TREAT them.

 

[rosesense]

jj2 said it well. We already have organizations to join and donate to the cause. Why not just support them?

 

[D4rk50ul]

True about the pharmy companies, but they can just make up new diseases all day long like they do already. Thing is Big tobacco is already feeling the squeeze from all the anti smoking ads, help agencies, indoor smoking bans, and insurance companies starting to offer coverage for quitting measures. Insurance companies sure would love everyone to quit or use PV's, they don't profit like the drug companies do they just pay out premiums.

Truth is if you can get a few of the industries to side with you, just slander the other one into oblivion. If Pharmy companies try to prevent something that everyone else likes the idea of even against hard evidence (testing paid for by big tobacco), everyone could claim they are TRYING to kill us. Hell I bet Tobacco and insurance companies would shell out millions in marketing to destroy Pharmy companies reputation on the subject. I'm pretty sure Pharmy companies would just buckle under the pressure and start manufacturing the hardware so we have a source of US made PV's. Then they could ALL be improving the health of America.

I might be crazy.

 

[gigibuybuy]

stealth vape for free man, since there's so many juice available it's hard for them to all get banned, how do you guys think the ban will start?

maybe they can shut down bigger ecig companies like greensmoke but there's many custom makers.

 

[kr38tiv]

jj2 said it well. We already have organizations to join and donate to the cause. Why not just support them?

Why not indeed rosesense, I don't see any kind of supportive banners or logo's on many of the major PV sites even suggesting that they recognise any particular organisation or are actively sponsoring or supporting them in any way....

Does anybody know of any suppliers or retailers actively supporting any groups with financial aid directly?

 

[DC2]

Great idea. Hell on the putting it into motion. Of course once you get a large well funded group you run into your own issues about what's important, what's acceptable (ban vs regulation drug device vs tobacco product) You see it gets more complicated than just get a pile of money and pick a fight. Clear goals, willingness to compromise in the face of total disaster, but not so quick to accept any offer no matter what it does to industry, consumer, or price as long as not total ban. FDA is notorious for giving approval letters that have a list of things a mile long you MUST do to keep approval. So although see the plus to a well funded lobby, just dealing with their success could make life hell for vapers. Tough proposition.

Should do like the guys in the OUTSIDE section of forum. Stock up and put our goodies in a vault in the artic so they cant take it away. Until they ban it I'm not brewing my own, but even though I'm not big on tobacco flavor at the moment, I'll make my own before I smoke the real things again or use one of those vaporizers next to the e cigs at my local 'shop'.

What he said.

 

[DC2]

I think our best bet is to swamp the media, politicians, physicians and communities with every positive reason we have for wanting the FDA to leave our e-cigs alone. Let them know that we refuse to just lay down and die because they want to force us back to analogs. We have to fight for our right to live.

This is the best answer though.
And the effort so far has been severely lacking.

We, as a group of advocates, are not impressive thus far at the national level.
But at the state level, we have been moving mountains.

Check out the campaigning subforums if you care to help.
And sign the petition linked in my signature if you aren't dead yet.