As most of you know, the FDA led by Scott Gottlieb, has created a mandate for reducing the amount of tobacco consumption, particularly by American youth. The goal is to save lives and the best way to do that is to minimize the use of combustible products which we know kill almost 500,000 Americans annually. There is NO proof that e-cigs kill people, although a few deaths have occurred from nicotine poisoning - mostly infants that got into the parents e-juice stash. We also know there is a widespread "Juuling" phenomenon occuring in America with our youth and that needs to stop - I know because my 14 year-old son tells me about it weekly. The current approach, based on the published notices with intent of nicotine reduction and regulating flavors, will NOT achieve their goals. With that said, I have created 5 key changes that I believe would help the FDA achieve their goals without negatively impacting the already declining rate of combustible tobacco use and adults that have already converted to alternate forms of nicotine consumption. These ideas are far from perfect, and there's plenty of room for criticism (i.e. I loathe taxes but the $ needs to come from somewhere) but with some feedback from this community, maybe we can construct alternative approaches that may one day be reviewed and considered by the FDA. One thing I believe most everyone on ECF can agree with: reducing combustion as a means to consume nicotine by adults and completely eliminating access to any nicotine products for our youth, is highly desirable and needed.
1. Significantly Increase the Current Penalties for Selling Nicotine Products to Minors
a. Raise the current fine cap of $1,000 to $10,000 per event
b. Change “possible up to 90 days jail” to mandatory 30 days for each event
2. Require Proof of Identity/Age at PoS for All Retailers
a. Offline retailers (traditional brick & mortar) must request proof of identity such as driver’s license or state ID card for sale to anyone that could be a minor. It’s not clear that this is being done today with the necessary level of rigor and the higher fines will help.
b. Online retailers must validate purchaser’s age. Several options can be used including a signature by adult upon receipt of a package (a la Amazon for alcohol) or a multiple authentication option with 3rd party risk services to validate identity once per transaction for any nicotine product. The 3rd party services costs could be as low as $0.50 per transaction (IDology, LexisNexis, etc.) plus the cost of API development (system services integration). Identity validation inputs could include one or more of these options, as needed:
a. Not much more needs to be said - this is a no-brainer change that should have happened already. This would add pennies to the cost of each bottle.
4. Set New Safety Guidelines & Education Campaign for E-Cig Users
a. These Guidelines would be for benefit of e-cig users, and smokers considering a change, and not a mandate to the industry on how the build devices. With an effective campaign, they are likely to drive demand for safer products with better disclosures, and in turn, drive innovation in the industry that will yield safer products.
b. The Guidelines would outline best practices to maximize safety, based on the limited research we have available, possibly including:
1. Significantly Increase the Current Penalties for Selling Nicotine Products to Minors
a. Raise the current fine cap of $1,000 to $10,000 per event
b. Change “possible up to 90 days jail” to mandatory 30 days for each event
2. Require Proof of Identity/Age at PoS for All Retailers
a. Offline retailers (traditional brick & mortar) must request proof of identity such as driver’s license or state ID card for sale to anyone that could be a minor. It’s not clear that this is being done today with the necessary level of rigor and the higher fines will help.
b. Online retailers must validate purchaser’s age. Several options can be used including a signature by adult upon receipt of a package (a la Amazon for alcohol) or a multiple authentication option with 3rd party risk services to validate identity once per transaction for any nicotine product. The 3rd party services costs could be as low as $0.50 per transaction (IDology, LexisNexis, etc.) plus the cost of API development (system services integration). Identity validation inputs could include one or more of these options, as needed:
- Require secret question at account registration and request for every nicotine-based transaction (no 3rd party required - cheapest option)
- Driver’s License # or Image Scan
- Last 4 SSN
- DoB
- Identity Questionnaire
a. Not much more needs to be said - this is a no-brainer change that should have happened already. This would add pennies to the cost of each bottle.
4. Set New Safety Guidelines & Education Campaign for E-Cig Users
a. These Guidelines would be for benefit of e-cig users, and smokers considering a change, and not a mandate to the industry on how the build devices. With an effective campaign, they are likely to drive demand for safer products with better disclosures, and in turn, drive innovation in the industry that will yield safer products.
b. The Guidelines would outline best practices to maximize safety, based on the limited research we have available, possibly including:
- Use regulated devices
- Maintain coil temperatures under 450F using temperature control if possible
- Maximize airflow to reduce coil temps
- Ensure proper wicking to reduce coil temps and prevent dry hits that can potentially generate combustion-like chemicals, especially when not using temp control
- Ensure all e-juice and flavor products you purchase disclose presence of harmful chemicals
- Proper battery and device handling and management tips
- Scope should cover materials, hardware, e-juice, bases and flavors
- Adjust guidelines as new findings are published to ensure the public and industry can make appropriate adjustments quickly
- Hire @mikepetro and give him $500M to figure this stuff out
- The current federal excise tax of $1.01 per pack is bringing in about $13B annually. An increase of just $0.10 per pack would generate an additional $1.3B which would be allocated exclusively towards helping vape users and retailers and this is more than enough $.
- Utilize a portion of the funds to provide a one-time tax write-off for any cigarette smoking tax filer who has converted to e-cigs if they have receipts of purchases on e-cigarette supplies up to $1,000.
- Provide a recurring tax write-off for online retailers to offset the increased costs of validating identity and age for each purchase. The amount should be based on the number of transactions and $1 per transaction should cover costs of the one-time technology integration with the 3rd party services, the recurring per transaction fees, or increased costs of shipping with signature upon receipt, and child-proof packaging.