Massachusetts AG Dropped the Bomb - Regs start 9/25/15

[sofarsogood]

The harder they try to keep kids away the higher the status of having them will be so the harder the kids will try to get them and the kids will succeed of course. Now if they want to ban possession of tobacco and ECs by kids and start arresting them for possession that might make a dent, otherwise they are wasting everybody's time.

 

[stevegmu]

The harder they try to keep kids away the higher the status of having them will be so the harder the kids will try to get them and the kids will succeed of course. Now if they want to ban possession of tobacco and ECs by kids and start arresting them for possession that might make a dent, otherwise they are wasting everybody's time.

The intent is to appease voters who call the offices of politicians asking why they see kids blowing clouds. That's it...

 

[caramel]

The harder they try to keep kids away the higher the status of having them will be so the harder the kids will try to get them and the kids will succeed of course. Now if they want to ban possession of tobacco and ECs by kids and start arresting them for possession that might make a dent, otherwise they are wasting everybody's time.

Parents will be delighted to have their kids arrested for having some loose tobacco in their pocket lint....

I say let's go for it.

 

[MaxwellPink]

Cigalike kits were $50 and more back in the day and plenty of people bought them. A starter kit with an eGo battery is $50 or less now. I don't see how there will be a difference. B&Ms were also quite limited. My B&M was a tobacco store and all they had were 510 attys and Chinese liquid. People will manage if they really have a desire to quit smoking.
I really don't get the uproar over age verification. This is one thing which I believe will come out of the 'deeming' on a national level and I believe e-liquid vendors who plan on being in business post regulations have already shopped around for age verification. The wild west of anyone making e-liquid and having a web site to sell it will be over. It is a business and competent businesses will do what businesses in any other industry does- meet basic regulations or close...

I have no problem with the age verification beyond business refusing to ship to my state. As for the prices...

Guess who was buying those things at those prices you quoted. People with a good amount of disposable income. Why do you think PHE is trying to get e-cigs accessible through prescription? Why do you think the patch and nicotine gum are available via prescription in the US? Because POOR people can't afford them otherwise.

Why should a system that has had such a high success rate at getting people off the cancer sticks only be available to those in the middle to upper classes?

 

[stevegmu]

I have no problem with the age verification beyond business refusing to ship to my state. As for the prices...

Guess who was buying those things at those prices you quoted. People with a good amount of disposable income. Why do you think PHE is trying to get e-cigs accessible through prescription? Why do you think the patch and nicotine gum are available via prescription in the US? Because POOR people can't afford them otherwise.

Why should a system that has had such a high success rate at getting people off the cancer sticks only be available to those in the middle to upper classes?

Nicotine gum is $5 and sold over the counter. The success rate is on par with other Nicotine replacement products from every study I have seen. if someone is really poor they probably shouldn't be using e cigarettes or smoking...

 

[hmar]

Nicotine gum is $5 and sold over the counter. The success rate is on par with other Nicotine replacement products from every study I have seen. if someone is really poor they probably shouldn't be using e cigarettes or smoking...

Probably not, but that never stopped anyone. that is why it's called an addiction. There will always be people that will spend the money on ecigs, but we should be making every attempt to increase adoption rate of ecigs. Yes, many of us spent the money when ecigs were still a lot more expensive then now. My first kit was a chinese cigalike that I spent 60 bucks on 4 or 5 years ago. It was the cost and accessibility that kept me from switching until last year, when I finally found something that was satisfying at a sustainable cost. When I smoked I bought pipe tobacco for 7 buckas a bag, 100 tubes cost me 3-5 dollars. This was enough to last me a week. With DIY and making my own coils I am back below that range of cost again, but it took me a year of trial and error to get here. In that year I took advantage of a ton of coupons, freebies, and discounts without which I would have failed, because I couldn't have risked the full prices on some of the products that saved me. If you are at a point where cost is no issue I am happy for you, but don't tell me that I should be consigned to either die or quit smoking cold turkey because you have more than me. That is the worst kind of elitism.

 

[stevegmu]

Probably not, but that never stopped anyone. that is why it's called an addiction. There will always be people that will spend the money on ecigs, but we should be making every attempt to increase adoption rate of ecigs. Yes, many of us spent the money when ecigs were still a lot more expensive then now. My first kit was a chinese cigalike that I spent 60 bucks on 4 or 5 years ago. It was the cost and accessibility that kept me from switching until last year, when I finally found something that was satisfying at a sustainable cost. When I smoked I bought pipe tobacco for 7 buckas a bag, 100 tubes cost me 3-5 dollars. This was enough to last me a week. With DIY and making my own coils I am back below that range of cost again, but it took me a year of trial and error to get here. In that year I took advantage of a ton of coupons, freebies, and discounts without which I would have failed, because I couldn't have risked the full prices on some of the products that saved me. If you are at a point where cost is no issue I am happy for you, but don't tell me that I should be consigned to either die or quit smoking cold turkey because you have more than me. That is the worst kind of elitism.

Life is full of choices. There are plenty of things I wouldn't do if I were poor...

 

[Mad Scientist]

The harder they try to keep kids away the higher the status of having them will be so the harder the kids will try to get them and the kids will succeed of course. Now if they want to ban possession of tobacco and ECs by kids and start arresting them for possession that might make a dent, otherwise they are wasting everybody's time.

I agree these over the top kluge solutions will never keep kids from experimenting with ecigs, real cigs and all kinds of other substances. But when everything is a crime, everyone is a criminal.

Parents knowing what their kids are actually doing goes a lot farther than the government trying to parent. When I was a kid, kids could not buy cigarettes but of course we got them without much trouble. Kids are the most ingenious (and destructive lol) force on the planet. My parents figured out what I was doing pretty quick and "intervened" lol. The problem isn't really a ridiculous government but ridiculous people who think the government can solve every problem or inconvenience.

On the topic of age verification, I once tried to buy from an online vendor that required it and they want to know your actual date of birth to run through some 3d party service. So lemme see . . . I give some online vendor all my demographic data, credit card number and now exact date of birth. Good thing no online vendors have ever been hacked . . .

 

[hmar]

Life is full of choices. There are plenty of things I wouldn't do if I were poor...

And I truly am happy for you that you are not. But there is no need to be judgmental.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Life is full of choices. There are plenty of things I wouldn't do if I were poor...

Rich or poor, the extra charged is a government mandated surcharge from our pockets to someone else, possibly someone politically connected enough to get this type of regulation enacted. I guess I don't see the age verification surcharge as having much if any real benefit (other than feel good backslapping and more propaganda from elected public servants) so I likewise don't want to see people have to pay it, or lobbyists push for it (is it "for the kids" or for the age verification industry?).

 

[stevegmu]

And I truly am happy for you that you are not. But there is no need to be judgmental.

I don't care what people spend their money on or what choices they make. I think many simply have issues with priorities.

Rich or poor, the extra charged is a government mandated surcharge from our pockets to someone else, possibly someone politically connected enough to get this type of regulation enacted. I guess I don't see the age verification surcharge as having much if any real benefit (other than feel good backslapping and more propaganda from elected public servants) so I likewise don't want to see people have to pay it, or lobbyists push for it (is it "for the kids" or for the age verification industry?).

The mentity of the majority of the population in states like Massachusetts is not aligned with what I believe to be the responsibility of governments. The people have created the political situation in such states through their votes. I always say voting has consequences. It does...

 

[MaxwellPink]

I agree these over the top kluge solutions will never keep kids from experimenting with ecigs, real cigs and all kinds of other substances. But when everything is a crime, everyone is a criminal.

Parents knowing what their kids are actually doing goes a lot farther than the government trying to parent. When I was a kid, kids could not buy cigarettes but of course we got them without much trouble. Kids are the most ingenious (and destructive lol) force on the planet. My parents figured out what I was doing pretty quick and "intervened" lol. The problem isn't really a ridiculous government but ridiculous people who think the government can solve every problem or inconvenience.

On the topic of age verification, I once tried to buy from an online vendor that required it and they want to know your actual date of birth to run through some 3d party service. So lemme see . . . I give some online vendor all my demographic data, credit card number and now exact date of birth. Good thing no online vendors have ever been hacked . . .

Honestly, I feel safer giving that info to an online vendor. Do a search for "SterlingBackcheck compromised". That's stupidity at its finest.

 

[MaxwellPink]

Life is full of choices. There are plenty of things I wouldn't do if I were poor...

Yeah, well get back to me when you've been in the situation of having to decide between food or rent.

 

[hmar]

The mentity of the majority of the population in states like Massachusetts is not align ed with what I believe to be the responsibility of governments. The people have created the political situation in such states through their votes. I always say voting has consequences. It does...

As a resident of Massachusetts I couldn't agree more with this statement. All you need to do is look north to all the transplants, moving to New Hampshire to avoid taxes and then complaining that they lack the services that they are used to, to see that so few of us bother to understand what we vote for.

 

[Mad Scientist]

As a resident of Massachusetts I couldn't agree more with this statement. All you need to do is look north to all the transplants, moving to New Hampshire to avoid taxes and then complaining that they lack the services that they are used to, to see that so few of us bother to understand what we vote for.

Ah yes, government services. Too many folks just want big daddy government to take care of everything so they never really have to mature from basically children to responsible adults.

 

[DC2]

All you need to do is look north to all the transplants, moving to New Hampshire to avoid taxes and then complaining that they lack the services that they are used to, to see that so few of us bother to understand what we vote for.

Just out of curiosity, what services do folks have in Massachusetts that they don't have in New Hampshire?

 

[MaxwellPink]

Just out of curiosity, what services do folks have in Massachusetts that they don't have in New Hampshire?

*shrugs* The only one I can think of, or care about, is public transportation.

I still think if the state has spent just half its projected Big Dig budget on public transportation they would've solved the traffic issue, both present and future, AND saved a .... ton of tax payers' money.

 

[hmar]

Just out of curiosity, what services do folks have in Massachusetts that they don't have in New Hampshire?

The biggest differences are in state health insurance and public transportation. I just love hearing people move from MA because of the taxes, and it never occurred to them that those taxes exist for a reason (this is not to make a comment on taxes or services and the need for either, or whether one state is better than another. This is strictly meant as an example of voting without realizing the real cost of what we vote for.)
In MA, we vote for things like state run health insurance, and then don't understand why our taxes went up. We want a state university system that ranks among the best in the nation, and then balk at the cost. And we do things like move to NH to get away from these taxes we created, and then try and vote for the same things that cost so much without ever seeing the pattern. It speaks to Steve's comment about voting having consequences.
I also may be out of date about some of this, I haven't paid attention to what NH was doing in a few years. I loved it when I went to school there. This is all stuff I looked into a few years ago when I was thinking of leaving MA, before inertia and security kept me here.

 

[MaxwellPink]

How many remember Prop. 2 1/2? It passed then people starting wondering why our police, fire and schools all started to suck.

 

[EBates]

Just my , but...... Anything govment run is Clumsy, Bureaucratic, and EXPENSIVE. The govment business model is the most GodAwful disaster imaginable. Owned, Run, and Managed By Idiots (read politicians).
So, yeah lets put Everything In govment Hands.