An Admin told me that I have to make like 15 replies in order to post in the grown up area. Seems like a good way to weed out sock puppets but I'm too lazy to make 15 lame one line replies.
SO CAN AN ADMIN PLEASE MOVE THIS TO THE LEGAL SECTION?
Anyway I wrote this about 2 months ago and then forgot about it until the total BS news stories I saw all day today.
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Hi there!
Im a refugee from the war on drugs in the 80s. I was more of a researcher/activist about drugs, than an actual (heavy) user, but I became disillusioned with our legal system and the blatant disregard to freedom in furtherance of the phoney war on drugs.
Since this is my first post just let me say that Ive always thought smoking was stupid. Its not that nicotine is stupid; Nicotine seems rather pleasurable to a lot of people; Its that the smoking delivery system is way more damaging than the nicotine is pleasurable. In contrast smoking marijuana is as damaging as cigarettes but one only needs about three inhalations to get very intoxicated for a long time, which seems an acceptable level of health damage to pleasure inducement. vaping seems like the perfect solution to almost every problem with smoking, making it no more harmful than drinking coffee.
Anyway I dont smoke but this whole vaping thing seems to have hit a nerve deep in my soul, and seems like something worth fighting for. I had a few things that might help you all to know, and (hopefully) make vaping the norm in the future.
---
1. The legal and regulatory system in this country (America) is a joke. There is no Constitution, there are no laws, there is only what people with money want, and who they pay off (FDA and DEA) to get it. So many of our laws arent for our benefit but for the benefit of people with money. Your average bank robber (who doesnt use a gun) gets a longer sentence than a child molester; take a guess which billion dollar lobby group made it that way.
Cigarettes are legal and out of the FDAs control because the tobacco lobby has billions of dollars to grease palms in Washington. YOU dont have billions of dollars. YOU are a few thousand users and a few dozen suppliers. So if you eventually start cutting into someones profits they will come down on you like a ton of bricks. For now, at least, they seem to be ignoring e-cigarettes and vaping, but who knows how long that will last.
I sincerely hope that the nicotine in the e-liquids can only come from tobacco because that would make the tobacco lobby your (reluctant) ally. If not, then vaping is doomed and will wind up next to the tobacco water pipes in those stores.
---
2. I was going to put this in the features/request section but it pertains to legalities also. Your average bureaucrat (that includes cops and regulators) is as imaginative as a sack of hammers. Often when they cant control something they will make something related to it illegal. They cant control Marijuana, so they try to make bongs illegal. They cant control ecstasy so they so they make glow sticks illegal. If you read the laws carefully one can often be fully convicted of a crime for claiming something is a drug even when it is not (20 years in prison for selling a kilo of sugar).
So, Making e-cigarettes look like real cigarettes right down to the glowing cherry is a loser move, at least legally. The entire cigarette issue is a massive morass. Millions of people have had relatives die from lung cancer, while the tobacco lobby has billions of dollars to fight their efforts to ban cigarettes. The taxes on cigarettes are NOT there to help with health costs. They are there to make governments as addicted to cigarette sales taxes as smokers are addicted to nicotine. I wouldnt jump into that mess without good reason.
Just from my studies of the DEA and other agencies, I would suggest making vaping devices look like anything BUT a cigarette, cigar, or pipe. A kazoo that also works (my favourite), a lolly pop, a bic pen, a twizzler, an astro pop, an asthma inhaler, a laser pointer, a battery, even a tampon. Also if its not necessary to have exhaled vape-mist, I would get rid of that too. If you have a bunch of people vaping in a bar it should just look like a group of people with a peculiar oral fixation and not a bunch of smokers (not counting the guy with a tampon in his mouth).
Your friends might make fun of your oral fixation at the bar, but you can laugh at them when they are standing 50 feet away from the bars entrance smoking in the rain.
---
3. One of the biggest hurdles from government will not be their concern for your health, but rather, their concern for the hundreds of millions of dollars in lost cigarette taxes if vaping becomes popular. Unless the tobacco lobby (or someone else with deep pockets) is there to fight for you, expect to be harassed by authorities in direct proportion to how much money they lose to vaping. I would also suggest contacting the tobacco GROWERS lobby. If they could make more money selling nicotine for e-liquid without tobacco taxes then you are golden, and set for life.
If all else fails you can allow e-liquid to be taxed like cigarettes, which will guarantee it remains legal, but would defeat most of the financial reasons for switching to vapes. I would really urge you all to resist this as long as possible, and punish any suppliers that allow their e-liquid to be taxed like a tobacco product because it would set a very bad precedent.
---
4. I cant help but notice that most of the e-liquids are based on propylene glycol. It may very well be the best for producing good tasting/feeling vape, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is at least partially because propylene glycol has been approved for smoke machines, and is sometimes used in cheap fruit soda.
No agency could ban vaping propylene glycol (not counting the nicotine), because it has already been approved for inhalation and ingestion. There are a lot of flavours and scents that have also been approved for smoke machines. It may not be the best (or it may) vaping base but it is the most legally defensible.
I dont know if inhaling propylene glycol over a long time is bad for your lungs but I do know for certain that inhaling oils (PG is NOT an oil) is very damaging to ones lungs. There is a statistical link between people who work with fryers and lung cancer (still not as high as smoking but measurable), and even some oil based flavourings like those used in microwave popcorn have been proven to cause lung damage if inhaled over long periods of time.
My point here is that, quite often, companies use the most legally defensible materials in their products and not the best (or safest). Although PE could be the very best (and safest) choice for a vape solution base.
---
5. I also couldnt help but notice that almost all the e-liquid cartridges seem to be 20ml or less. A little pocket math shows that even high nicotine solutions have less than the LDA50 (Lethal Dosage Amount for 50% of Subjects) for almost everyone but an infant, if the whole container was ingested. Another good example of suppliers covering their butts legally, without actually admitting that e-liquid is poisonous in large amounts.
---
6. Legally, it seems that the only real regulatory hurdle is the e-liquid (or specifically the nicotine). Assuming you have good lawyers everything else should be clear, as long as you dont make actionable claims (like smoking cessation aid, or healthier than cigarettes).
If you dont have good lawyers and some bureaucrat puts you in his sights then prepare for pain. Despite what it says in the constitution if someone decides to start seizing your shipments of e-liquid and/or devices, you will have to prove that you are not breaking a law. To be more clear; if some agency decides to jerk you around you will have to prove that you are NOT doing something illegal, as opposed to that agency having to prove that you ARE doing something illegal.
Some proactive actions that you may want to take are as follows:
* Separate the nicotine from the e-liquid. I dont mean to sell e-liquid without nicotine (which Ive seen on some sites), but rather, put each in separate containers and never bundle them together. So much in law enforcement is dont ask dont tell, like the way one can buy a water pipe here in California as long as one never says Marijuana.
* Have a legitimate non-smoking use for the nicotine. I would suggest marketing it as organic pesticide which is actually nicotines purpose in nature. When you sell the nicotine you can clearly say Food Grade nicotine and then right after that not for human consumption (when everyone knows that the nicotine is supposed to be mixed with the vape solution).
* NEVER put anything on an official site about how to mix the nicotine into the e-Liquid. This is the ......edness of the dont ask, dont tell regulation system that we live it. One CAN however put that information on any public forum (like here). I suppose a good sticky posted article would be, How to mix food grade nicotine into a vape solution, in 3 easy steps.
* Seeing as how people will have to make an intuitive leap or have inside information to mix the vape and nicotine you might also want to make the containers idiot proof. For example selling 20ml vape solution in a 40 ml container, and then having next to that people who bought this item also bought 20ml organic nicotine pesticide. Making it fairly obvious where you put the nicotine. Also making the nicotine solution not strong enough to harm someone if they accidentally vape it straight without mixing.
* I wonder if [FONT="]"aromatic-inhalers-and-organic-pesticides"[/FONT] is taken already?
---
7. Anyway those are my thoughts. I hope that my 20+ years experience with the FDA and DEA might help you out in some small way. Now if youll excuse me, I have to figure out which e-Cigarette I should get for 2 pack a day sister for her birthday.
Any suggestions?
SO CAN AN ADMIN PLEASE MOVE THIS TO THE LEGAL SECTION?
Anyway I wrote this about 2 months ago and then forgot about it until the total BS news stories I saw all day today.
---
Hi there!
Im a refugee from the war on drugs in the 80s. I was more of a researcher/activist about drugs, than an actual (heavy) user, but I became disillusioned with our legal system and the blatant disregard to freedom in furtherance of the phoney war on drugs.
Since this is my first post just let me say that Ive always thought smoking was stupid. Its not that nicotine is stupid; Nicotine seems rather pleasurable to a lot of people; Its that the smoking delivery system is way more damaging than the nicotine is pleasurable. In contrast smoking marijuana is as damaging as cigarettes but one only needs about three inhalations to get very intoxicated for a long time, which seems an acceptable level of health damage to pleasure inducement. vaping seems like the perfect solution to almost every problem with smoking, making it no more harmful than drinking coffee.
Anyway I dont smoke but this whole vaping thing seems to have hit a nerve deep in my soul, and seems like something worth fighting for. I had a few things that might help you all to know, and (hopefully) make vaping the norm in the future.
---
1. The legal and regulatory system in this country (America) is a joke. There is no Constitution, there are no laws, there is only what people with money want, and who they pay off (FDA and DEA) to get it. So many of our laws arent for our benefit but for the benefit of people with money. Your average bank robber (who doesnt use a gun) gets a longer sentence than a child molester; take a guess which billion dollar lobby group made it that way.
Cigarettes are legal and out of the FDAs control because the tobacco lobby has billions of dollars to grease palms in Washington. YOU dont have billions of dollars. YOU are a few thousand users and a few dozen suppliers. So if you eventually start cutting into someones profits they will come down on you like a ton of bricks. For now, at least, they seem to be ignoring e-cigarettes and vaping, but who knows how long that will last.
I sincerely hope that the nicotine in the e-liquids can only come from tobacco because that would make the tobacco lobby your (reluctant) ally. If not, then vaping is doomed and will wind up next to the tobacco water pipes in those stores.
---
2. I was going to put this in the features/request section but it pertains to legalities also. Your average bureaucrat (that includes cops and regulators) is as imaginative as a sack of hammers. Often when they cant control something they will make something related to it illegal. They cant control Marijuana, so they try to make bongs illegal. They cant control ecstasy so they so they make glow sticks illegal. If you read the laws carefully one can often be fully convicted of a crime for claiming something is a drug even when it is not (20 years in prison for selling a kilo of sugar).
So, Making e-cigarettes look like real cigarettes right down to the glowing cherry is a loser move, at least legally. The entire cigarette issue is a massive morass. Millions of people have had relatives die from lung cancer, while the tobacco lobby has billions of dollars to fight their efforts to ban cigarettes. The taxes on cigarettes are NOT there to help with health costs. They are there to make governments as addicted to cigarette sales taxes as smokers are addicted to nicotine. I wouldnt jump into that mess without good reason.
Just from my studies of the DEA and other agencies, I would suggest making vaping devices look like anything BUT a cigarette, cigar, or pipe. A kazoo that also works (my favourite), a lolly pop, a bic pen, a twizzler, an astro pop, an asthma inhaler, a laser pointer, a battery, even a tampon. Also if its not necessary to have exhaled vape-mist, I would get rid of that too. If you have a bunch of people vaping in a bar it should just look like a group of people with a peculiar oral fixation and not a bunch of smokers (not counting the guy with a tampon in his mouth).
Your friends might make fun of your oral fixation at the bar, but you can laugh at them when they are standing 50 feet away from the bars entrance smoking in the rain.
---
3. One of the biggest hurdles from government will not be their concern for your health, but rather, their concern for the hundreds of millions of dollars in lost cigarette taxes if vaping becomes popular. Unless the tobacco lobby (or someone else with deep pockets) is there to fight for you, expect to be harassed by authorities in direct proportion to how much money they lose to vaping. I would also suggest contacting the tobacco GROWERS lobby. If they could make more money selling nicotine for e-liquid without tobacco taxes then you are golden, and set for life.
If all else fails you can allow e-liquid to be taxed like cigarettes, which will guarantee it remains legal, but would defeat most of the financial reasons for switching to vapes. I would really urge you all to resist this as long as possible, and punish any suppliers that allow their e-liquid to be taxed like a tobacco product because it would set a very bad precedent.
---
4. I cant help but notice that most of the e-liquids are based on propylene glycol. It may very well be the best for producing good tasting/feeling vape, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is at least partially because propylene glycol has been approved for smoke machines, and is sometimes used in cheap fruit soda.
No agency could ban vaping propylene glycol (not counting the nicotine), because it has already been approved for inhalation and ingestion. There are a lot of flavours and scents that have also been approved for smoke machines. It may not be the best (or it may) vaping base but it is the most legally defensible.
I dont know if inhaling propylene glycol over a long time is bad for your lungs but I do know for certain that inhaling oils (PG is NOT an oil) is very damaging to ones lungs. There is a statistical link between people who work with fryers and lung cancer (still not as high as smoking but measurable), and even some oil based flavourings like those used in microwave popcorn have been proven to cause lung damage if inhaled over long periods of time.
My point here is that, quite often, companies use the most legally defensible materials in their products and not the best (or safest). Although PE could be the very best (and safest) choice for a vape solution base.
---
5. I also couldnt help but notice that almost all the e-liquid cartridges seem to be 20ml or less. A little pocket math shows that even high nicotine solutions have less than the LDA50 (Lethal Dosage Amount for 50% of Subjects) for almost everyone but an infant, if the whole container was ingested. Another good example of suppliers covering their butts legally, without actually admitting that e-liquid is poisonous in large amounts.
---
6. Legally, it seems that the only real regulatory hurdle is the e-liquid (or specifically the nicotine). Assuming you have good lawyers everything else should be clear, as long as you dont make actionable claims (like smoking cessation aid, or healthier than cigarettes).
If you dont have good lawyers and some bureaucrat puts you in his sights then prepare for pain. Despite what it says in the constitution if someone decides to start seizing your shipments of e-liquid and/or devices, you will have to prove that you are not breaking a law. To be more clear; if some agency decides to jerk you around you will have to prove that you are NOT doing something illegal, as opposed to that agency having to prove that you ARE doing something illegal.
Some proactive actions that you may want to take are as follows:
* Separate the nicotine from the e-liquid. I dont mean to sell e-liquid without nicotine (which Ive seen on some sites), but rather, put each in separate containers and never bundle them together. So much in law enforcement is dont ask dont tell, like the way one can buy a water pipe here in California as long as one never says Marijuana.
* Have a legitimate non-smoking use for the nicotine. I would suggest marketing it as organic pesticide which is actually nicotines purpose in nature. When you sell the nicotine you can clearly say Food Grade nicotine and then right after that not for human consumption (when everyone knows that the nicotine is supposed to be mixed with the vape solution).
* NEVER put anything on an official site about how to mix the nicotine into the e-Liquid. This is the ......edness of the dont ask, dont tell regulation system that we live it. One CAN however put that information on any public forum (like here). I suppose a good sticky posted article would be, How to mix food grade nicotine into a vape solution, in 3 easy steps.
* Seeing as how people will have to make an intuitive leap or have inside information to mix the vape and nicotine you might also want to make the containers idiot proof. For example selling 20ml vape solution in a 40 ml container, and then having next to that people who bought this item also bought 20ml organic nicotine pesticide. Making it fairly obvious where you put the nicotine. Also making the nicotine solution not strong enough to harm someone if they accidentally vape it straight without mixing.
* I wonder if [FONT="]"aromatic-inhalers-and-organic-pesticides"[/FONT] is taken already?
---
7. Anyway those are my thoughts. I hope that my 20+ years experience with the FDA and DEA might help you out in some small way. Now if youll excuse me, I have to figure out which e-Cigarette I should get for 2 pack a day sister for her birthday.
Any suggestions?
