Lorillard purchases Blu E-Cigs

[NC_Fog]

The one thing that really concerns me the most is the possible up and coming taxation. Blu on their website(as do some other vendors)claim that a pre-filled cartomizer is equal to a pack of cigarettes(We all know that's just marketing and hype). Think about it, a single cartomizer taxed at the same rate as a pack of cigarettes. Hmmmm not much motivation to switch to vaping now, is it? It is actually cheaper to smoke than to vape as their prices stand now(for moderate/heavy vapers). I know as a long term heavy smoker that I wouldn't have spent more money to vape when I made the switch. I myself equate a cartomizer to about 3 to 4 cigarettes.IMHO

Marty

 

[Petrodus]

If we don't stay calm and rational, we have no chance to fight anything that needs fighting.
And if we give up and go scurrying off into our little holes, then we are really done for.

There are many advantages for being a member of the ECF

For those who feel a sense of despair, helplessness, or panic ...
The collective knowledge and expertise of our membership is
amazing.

Regardless of what comes at us in the future ...
Look to the ECF for direction, suggestions, and the "work around".

 

[rolygate]

I just read that if every cigarette smoker in America smoked ONE less cigarette a day, the tobacco business would lose from one to two BILLION dollars a year. Imagine then, what kind of threat we are to them.

That is an interesting figure.

If it refers to total cigarette sales figures then it's worth pointing out that in actual fact it's the state that is losing out bigtime, not the tobacco industry. The state takes 90 cents on the dollar, the tobacco industry only gets 10 cents on the dollar. When you buy a pack of cigs you are in effect dealing with government as they are the 9 to 1 stakeholders in the sale. Someone who gets 1 in 10 of the reward is hardly the major partner.

Where I live, cigarettes are about $11 a pack. $10 goes to government, $1 to the tobacco company. I'm paying the government for the product, not a tobacco corporation - they get peanuts out of it.

For sure, it hurts tobacco, but they have known for a long time that this was coming - which is why they are getting into snus and ecigs. Only the real dullards (like Imperial Tobacco) are left criticising products that they well know will be their biggest seller one day.

Pharma can easily see that every ecig user is a non-chemotherapy drug candidate and it worries them to death. That's a 50% hit on their sales on its way.

The state hasn't figured out yet what they are going to do about a possible future 50% cut in tobacco revenue. One way could be that if a carto "is equivalent to 20 cigarettes" then that's what they'll tax it as.

Look forward to that one

 

[izak]

I just want to add to the conversation something which hasn't yet been said but has been implied by some (Kristen, Roly, some others): BT's entry into the e-cig market is not guaranteed to be either a good or bad thing yet. However, we as a community of e-cig users have the opportunity to influence the outcome of their entry. We are already the market, we are already the suppliers; as this is the golden age of vaping, this is our first and best opportunity to try and control the terms of the future of the ecig market. There are at least three ways that this could go down:

1) The individual level. Indeed, this might be the most important way we each can influence the outcome of ecigs' entry into the public and national consciousness. We need to make sure that we are all the best advocates we can be for our product; this entails educating others about the reality of ecig use; this entails educating ourselves about the issues of the day regarding ecig advocacy; this entails making sure that we can articulate, with eloquence and expertise, the reasons we vape and why we think it is a good thing. We need to reach out to smokers, antz, and suppliers in order to make our voices heard. The individual can also use his or her own expertise for the benefit of the ecig and ecig community; those of us versed in law, communications, business, engineering, science, and so forth, all have a role to play in creating the future of the ecig community.

This also means that we need, as a community, to think critically about the issue at hand. One-line doomsday predictions about how BT will poison us all or will drive out all competition doesn't add to the conversation and lights fires that those of us working for the ecig community have to spend time and energy putting out. One-line overly optimistic accounts about how this will save us all does the same thing. And every one-liner that outsiders read only risks creating the perception that we, as a community, have problematic logic and reasoning capacities. Now, I'm not saying, only long posts; I'm saying that we should all be doing our best to add to the conversation. If one of us has genuine worries and fears, they should be allowed to articulate that, and they should be encouraged to articulate it with as much warrant and grounds to back it up as they can muster.

2) Collective advocacy. Groups like CASAA are of utmost importance; making sure that there are chapters of the group or other organized advocacy collectives in your community helps safeguard the ecig against tampering which would harm the vaping community.

3) Governmental practices. A lot of folks on this forum remind me of militia-types who don't trust anything the government does. Or big corporations. Or any large collective of human beings. BUT, these folks make the mistake of treating all of these large-scale entities as if they are monolithic agents with a one-minded pursuit of easy to name goals. The truth of the situation is that these organizations deal with tensions both internal and external to their particular authority. Internal tensions mean that we can't reject out of hand any possibility of working with or within governmental or corporate organizations as if all of those organizations aren't made up of individual beings with their own interests or as if anyone who works within these organizations are themselves evil. External tensions mean that we can't just write off any battle that needs to be fought at the collective level as already won or lost.

What I'm trying to say in this overly-long post is that the real implication of Big Tobacco's entry into the world of ecigs is that the window where we have the most influence as individuals is rapidly closing. As more and more money comes into the market, individual action and consciousness-raising will have to become more collective in order to compete with those collective interests which would shut our community out of controlling the future of the ecig market. We don't know whether or not this will be a good or bad thing, but we can control what we do to make sure we have the best levers of influence over the outcome.

 

[izak]

http://www.cspnet.com/news/tobacco/articles/big-e-cig-move writes:

Bonnie Herzog, senior analyst and managing director of tobacco, beverage and consumer research at Wells Fargo Securities LLC, had more than just industry insight to share with those in attendance of her "U.S. Tobacco Trends & Insights" talk Wednesday at the NATO Show in Las Vegas

Basically, she speculates that Lorillard has entered the market so as to have a "seat at the table" when the FDA inevitably moves to regulate ecigs.

 

[Petrodus]

Pharma can easily see that every ecig user is a non-chemotherapy drug candidate
and it worries them to death. That's a 50% hit on their sales on its way.

The state hasn't figured out yet what they are going to do about a possible future 50% cut
in tobacco revenue. One way could be that if a carto "is equivalent to 20 cigarettes"
then that's what they'll tax it as.

Look forward to that one

If I were a young parent ...
I would be asking myself at what age should I tell my child the truth.
BP and The State are lying. Of course, children will ask ...
Why and what can be done about it?

 

[Myk]

Also how will they survive if they dont eliminate the juice supply?

Like you said, they start selling juice. The juice makers can make money selling juice so why wouldn't BT?

What I see eventually happening is BT has the Blu type lines that rely on prefilled carts and they also have eGo type lines that rely on juice sales.
Either that or they'll come up with a much cheaper cart option.
If they go with juice I'd imagine a much safer container and filling method than jars and syringes. Something to ensure proper fill levels with less chance of spills.

The one thing that really concerns me the most is the possible up and coming taxation. Blu on their website(as do some other vendors)claim that a pre-filled cartomizer is equal to a pack of cigarettes(We all know that's just marketing and hype). Think about it, a single cartomizer taxed at the same rate as a pack of cigarettes. Hmmmm not much motivation to switch to vaping now, is it? It is actually cheaper to smoke than to vape as their prices stand now(for moderate/heavy vapers). I know as a long term heavy smoker that I wouldn't have spent more money to vape when I made the switch. I myself equate a cartomizer to about 3 to 4 cigarettes.IMHO

Marty

Pipe tobacco does not have the same tax as cigarettes.
I think if e-cigs are shown to have a much better long term quit ratio compared to NRT (something like 7%-37% I think) proposing a tax before cigarettes are a distant memory would be suicide for any politician. They'd even get the citizen antis against that. (I know plenty of antis and none of them buy into the the FDA lies about e-cigs, they think it's great that I'm not smoking even if I'm using nicotine. I just talked with my sister about this and she's very much anti-tobacco.)

 

[izak]

If I were a young parent ...
I would be asking myself at what age should I tell my child the truth.
BP and The State are lying. Of course, children will ask ...
Why and what can be done about it?

You should be telling your child the truth always. In a media-dominated world, there is no hiding a child from the "unseemly," and so the only way to build trust is to tell the truth always. What can be done about it? We can do our best to speak truth to power, and we can always try our best to educate our children to think critically and for themselves.

 

[ByeByeCoffinNails]

I heard the debate on VPLive last night. If you haven't heard it yet, give it a listen.

Nice to hear Rolygate's voice!

 

[kwalka]

I just want to add to the conversation something which hasn't yet been said but has been implied by some (Kristen, Roly, some others): BT's entry into the e-cig market is not guaranteed to be either a good or bad thing yet. However, we as a community of e-cig users have the opportunity to influence the outcome of their entry. We are already the market, we are already the suppliers; as this is the golden age of vaping, this is our first and best opportunity to try and control the terms of the future of the ecig market. There are at least three ways that this could go down:

1) The individual level. Indeed, this might be the most important way we each can influence the outcome of ecigs' entry into the public and national consciousness. We need to make sure that we are all the best advocates we can be for our product; this entails educating others about the reality of ecig use; this entails educating ourselves about the issues of the day regarding ecig advocacy; this entails making sure that we can articulate, with eloquence and expertise, the reasons we vape and why we think it is a good thing. We need to reach out to smokers, antz, and suppliers in order to make our voices heard. The individual can also use his or her own expertise for the benefit of the ecig and ecig community; those of us versed in law, communications, business, engineering, science, and so forth, all have a role to play in creating the future of the ecig community.

This also means that we need, as a community, to think critically about the issue at hand. One-line doomsday predictions about how BT will poison us all or will drive out all competition doesn't add to the conversation and lights fires that those of us working for the ecig community have to spend time and energy putting out. One-line overly optimistic accounts about how this will save us all does the same thing. And every one-liner that outsiders read only risks creating the perception that we, as a community, have problematic logic and reasoning capacities. Now, I'm not saying, only long posts; I'm saying that we should all be doing our best to add to the conversation. If one of us has genuine worries and fears, they should be allowed to articulate that, and they should be encouraged to articulate it with as much warrant and grounds to back it up as they can muster.

2) Collective advocacy. Groups like CASAA are of utmost importance; making sure that there are chapters of the group or other organized advocacy collectives in your community helps safeguard the ecig against tampering which would harm the vaping community.

3) Governmental practices. A lot of folks on this forum remind me of militia-types who don't trust anything the government does. Or big corporations. Or any large collective of human beings. BUT, these folks make the mistake of treating all of these large-scale entities as if they are monolithic agents with a one-minded pursuit of easy to name goals. The truth of the situation is that these organizations deal with tensions both internal and external to their particular authority. Internal tensions mean that we can't reject out of hand any possibility of working with or within governmental or corporate organizations as if all of those organizations aren't made up of individual beings with their own interests or as if anyone who works within these organizations are themselves evil. External tensions mean that we can't just write off any battle that needs to be fought at the collective level as already won or lost.

What I'm trying to say in this overly-long post is that the real implication of Big Tobacco's entry into the world of ecigs is that the window where we have the most influence as individuals is rapidly closing. As more and more money comes into the market, individual action and consciousness-raising will have to become more collective in order to compete with those collective interests which would shut our community out of controlling the future of the ecig market. We don't know whether or not this will be a good or bad thing, but we can control what we do to make sure we have the best levers of influence over the outcome.

I agree good or bad is yet to be determined. I wish we had the power to influence the outcome, but we are not the market. We are the 5-8% secondary market, as pointed out by the representing parties on the broadcast last night. I dont think you will find many if any faithfull, happy blu users here. We are the community who may of tried a blu and quickly realized it was going to take a lot more than that to be successfull. We do have a few vendors out of many that may have reached the level where they can weather the storm when it comes pouring down, but the suppliers are just as much up in the air as the aforementioned situation.
I agree 100% with the statement about this being the golden age of vaping. We should be gratefull that we had the chance to be part of it while it is still young and viable.
I have been preaching for 2 months now about not stealth vaping, and about getting the word out to as many as possible so when the day comes we have as many on our side as possible. Also to seperate ourselves from the smokers. One thing we know for sure about this purchase is that it just got twice as hard, if not impossible to do that.
As far as critical thinking goes, there are only so many out there capable of that. Thats a side effect of a venue such as this, anyone and everyone w an internet connection can voice their opinion. IMHO, that just makes the constitution that much stronger. Or whats left of it anyway!
As far as #3 goes, I dont mean to insult you in any way, but you are sadly mistaken there my fellow vaper. If you believe what you wrote there I truly feel for you. The individual that works for those companies are for sure not evil, but at the same time, as far as their concerned, they dont have any choice, and their just supporting their families. When in all reality they are contributing to the problem.
Again, I wish the window of influence ,as far as our community is concerned, even existed. When your talking about going up against BT and their lobbying power, we dont exist. I agree w you in theory, but in reality it just isnt there.

FTR, I was responding to your post as soon as you posted it and the damn power went out for over an hour. So I tried to wrap this up well after I began.

 

[izak]

I agree good or bad is yet to be determined. I wish we had the power to influence the outcome, but we are not the market. We are the 5-8% secondary market, as pointed out by the representing parties on the broadcast last night. I dont think you will find many if any faithfull, happy blu users here. We are the community who may of tried a blu and quickly realized it was going to take a lot more than that to be successfull. We do have a few vendors out of many that may have reached the level where they can weather the storm when it comes pouring down, but the suppliers are just as much up in the air as the aforementioned situation.

I think this is where we can be a big help; certainly, not all suppliers and vendors will weather the storm of corporate competition, but I think that we can make sure something of our market survives. I don't have the numbers to back it up, but I do think that we are a majority of the market. It seems that most people I know who buy blu's (or similar devices) either go back to cigarettes or upgrade.

I have been preaching for 2 months now about not stealth vaping, and about getting the word out to as many as possible so when the day comes we have as many on our side as possible. Also to seperate ourselves from the smokers. One thing we know for sure about this purchase is that it just got twice as hard, if not impossible to do that.

It might do us well to distance ourselves from smokers in a public relations sense, but overall I think this is a poor idea. Life is getting harder and harder for smokers (e.g., clear air acts, sin taxes), there are millions of them, and they share many of our concerns.

As far as critical thinking goes, there are only so many out there capable of that. Thats a side effect of a venue such as this, anyone and everyone w an internet connection can voice their opinion. IMHO, that just makes the constitution that much stronger. Or whats left of it anyway!

These sorts of attitudes concern me. While it is easy for me to think that most people just aren't smart enough for critical thinking, this appears to be a short step to total nihilism. As a communications instructor at the a local university, I understand that most people are not persuaded by the rationale of argument but instead by extra-rational factors, but this is doesn't have to be the case.

As far as #3 goes, I dont mean to insult you in any way, but you are sadly mistaken there my fellow vaper. If you believe what you wrote there I truly feel for you. The individual that works for those companies are for sure not evil, but at the same time, as far as their concerned, they dont have any choice, and their just supporting their families. When in all reality they are contributing to the problem.

Because they are not evil, they can be reasoned with. But my point about the heterogeneity of institutions was simply that we shouldn't write off large-scale engagement and alliances with institutions simply because they are institutions.

Again, I wish the window of influence ,as far as our community is concerned, even existed. When your talking about going up against BT and their lobbying power, we dont exist. I agree w you in theory, but in reality it just isnt there.

The point about the window of influence is to point out precisely that we should not go up against BT and their lobbying power. We should ally with them, we should become indispensible to them.

Thanks for the thoughtful response

 

[kwalka]

I don't have the numbers to back it up, but I do think that we are a majority of the market. It seems that most people I know who buy blu's (or similar devices) either go back to cigarettes or upgrade.

I apologize if I missed this in your previous post, but did you listen to the broadcast? The major players, Roly, etc., stated that they would be surprised if we were even at the 5% mark.

 

[kwalka]

If I were a young parent ...
I would be asking myself at what age should I tell my child the truth.
BP and The State are lying. Of course, children will ask ...
Why and what can be done about it?

My wife and I have 4 kids under 12 and we do not believe in sheltering them from this land of lemmings we live in. They get the truth, to the degree that is age appropriate. They understand that the news is somebody's opinion, and mostly BS. We make a point to get into specific conversations when we are watching something educational such as National Geographic, and how this is one of the few things that you will ever see on TV that is true 100%.
When I got to the age where I was able to see the world, politics, religion, etc for myself I was devastated at the level of BS that people are fed and whats worse they are happy to remain ignorant and play follow the leader.
My oldest 2 know why and what can be done about it.

 

[DC2]

Again, I wish the window of influence ,as far as our community is concerned, even existed. When your talking about going up against BT and their lobbying power, we dont exist. I agree w you in theory, but in reality it just isnt there.

The thing is, the same could be said about fighting Big Pharma, and yet we are doing that, and having great success!
In fact, it is getting to the point where it is quite a surprise whenever we lose.

I'd say our winning percentage is somewhere around 90% at this point.

First we beat the FDA and the lobbyists for Big Pharma by preventing the banning of electronic cigarettes.
I'd like to think that our combined efforts may have had an impact on how Judge Leon viewed the facts of the case.

And now we are almost routinely beating the lobbyists for Big Pharma by removing electronic cigarettes from smoking bans.
I have no doubt it is our combined efforts that are the primary factor for most of those victories.

Why do we have such success against those with so much money and power?
Because we have truth on our side, and the passion of those who have found something that is saving their lives.

And I would really like to believe that the same weapons that are working for us against Big Pharma will work against Big Tobacco.
Should it come to that, at the very least I hope we are ready to come together and make our voices heard.

And it might very well come to that, depending on what approach Lorillard takes.

 

[izak]

I apologize if I missed this in your previous post, but did you listen to the broadcast? The major players, Roly, etc., stated that they would be surprised if we were even at the 5% mark.

Yeah, I listened. They weren't sprouting any numbers or studies, though. I would really like to see some quant's which controlled for repeat customers. No one I know has either stuck it out with the mini ecig or failed to upgrade.

Edit - Clarification: What I'm trying to say is that I think that it might be possible that we "advanced vapers" make up a fraction of sales on any given day only because many people are trying the ecig for the first time. We are likely a majority of repeat customers.

 

[izak]

The thing is, the same could be said about fighting Big Pharma, and yet we are doing that, and having great success! [...] And I would really like to believe that the same weapons that are working for us against Big Pharma will work against Big Tobacco. Should it come to that, at the very least I hope we are ready to come together and make our voices heard. And it might very well come to that, depending on what approach Lorillard takes.

Well, the interesting point is that this might not be a battle we have to fight but rather an alliance we have to negotiate. And that is why this is an historic moment for our little community

 

[DC2]

Well, the interesting point is that this might not be a battle we have to fight but rather an alliance we have to negotiate.

I sure hope so, and we'll know as soon as we find out which direction Lorillard plans on going.

It's either going to be a battle or an alliance, and it all will come down to one thing...
Is Lorillard going to advocate the elimination of free-market access to nicotine.

The fact that Blu doesn't offer nicotine liquid for refilling says a lot in my opinion.

 

[NorthOfAtlanta]

Well, the interesting point is that this might not be a battle we have to fight but rather an alliance we have to negotiate. And that is why this is an historic moment for our little community

The ball is in Lorillards court, but I think we have to be ready to fight or shake hands, it's up to them which way it goes.

 

[kwalka]

The thing is, the same could be said about fighting Big Pharma, and yet we are doing that, and having great success!
In fact, it is getting to the point where it is quite a surprise whenever we lose.

I'd say our winning percentage is somewhere around 90% at this point.

First we beat the FDA and the lobbyists for Big Pharma by preventing the banning of electronic cigarettes.
I'd like to think that our combined efforts may have had an impact on how Judge Leon viewed the facts of the case.

And now we are almost routinely beating the lobbyists for Big Pharma by removing electronic cigarettes from smoking bans.
I have no doubt it is our combined efforts that are the primary factor for most of those victories.

Why do we have such success against those with so much money and power?
Because we have truth on our side, and the passion of those who have found something that is saving their lives.

And I would really like to believe that the same weapons that are working for us against Big Pharma will work against Big Tobacco.
Should it come to that, at the very least I hope we are ready to come together and make our voices heard.

And it might very well come to that, depending on what approach Lorillard takes.

I'm too new around here to know about the Judge Leon thing. I must say being unaware of these things you bring up, gives me a renewed hope that having the truth on your side can beat the almighty dollar.
I'm sure you have read some of my posts about openly vaping among a small group of people in a waiting room, and before I start I exclaim " has anybody here seen one of these", or " are any of you interested in quitting smoking?". This is because I feel so strongly about this product and what its done for me. Every chance I get I am approaching smokers and outright asking them if they are interested. I wish someone showed me 5 yrs ago.

 

[izak]

The ball is in Lorillards court, but I think we have to be ready to fight or shake hands, it's up to them which way it goes.

A ball is in our court, too. Turns out, we've been in the ecig business longer than they have.