What will ECF look like?
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Well if they tax a derivative of a commodity, they need to go ahead and tax sugar as well as caffeine.
Sugar because it aid in the cause of diabetes, and caffeine because they can hustle monster, redbull, and it is killing people..
Sugar because it aid in the cause of diabetes, and caffeine because they can hustle monster, redbull, and it is killing people..
If governments are to have their 'tea taxes,' they should justified by and in line with the costs of regulation. I do not favor social engineering through punitive taxation.
There is one reason for resistance to ecigs and one reason alone: lots of people make vast fortunes from smoking. It's as simple as that. Health issues are irrelevant - they are not taken into account and never will be. I don't know how the numbers run in the US but in the UK it's all on such a small scale, and data capture is efficient enough, that you can easily see where the money is going:
The 2012/2013 UK tobacco market (total sales of cigarettes and tobacco) is expected to be £14bn.
The tobacco industry gets £2bn.
The government gets £12bn, the tax proportion of the sale price.
This makes government an 86% stakeholder in tobacco sales, just by main street sales revenue alone.
There's more to add though: the savings to government resulting from cigarette sales are estimated as a minimum of £10bn per annum, as smokers are said to die 8 years younger on average, so that the government saves 8 years of pensions at end of life; plus all other social support costs and healthcare etc (healthcare is free to all in the UK and costs a very large amount of money). So, make that a total £22bn gain for government.
However they have to pay out for the cost of treating sick and dying smokers, which is £3bn annually through the NHS (national health service). Net gain is therefore £19bn.
This makes government a 90% stakeholder in tobacco sales: their take is so large that essentially you buy your cigarettes from the government. Government is a 9 to 1 partner in tobacco.
The pharmaceutical industry earns £1.5bn per annum from the NHS for the treatment of sick smokers (half the cost of treatment is the drug costs).
Add in: at least £100m through the private healthcare system.
Add in: the increment in all drug sales due to smokers being less healthy and needing more of any/all drugs (such as diabetes drugs), which are not factored in to NHS's declared cost of treating smokers - let's conservatively say £250m.
Add in: 50% of the cost of the cost of NHS SSS (stop smoking services) for the drugs used, which must also be added: £100m a year.
Add in: retail sales of OTC meds that individuals buy because they are smokers; maybe £100m although that is probably low (this is the OTC market for NRTs, chest meds etc).
So pharma makes £2.05bn per annum from smoking in the UK - equal to or more than the tobacco industry earns. Pharma is a 50-50 partner with the tobacco industry on straight sales earnings from smoking.
Pharma can't publish diatribes against commercial competitors especially when those rivals look as if they are doing a better, cheaper job. Instead they buy medics, researchers and academics to publish the lies and propaganda they need promulgating, and which gives the disinformation an air of respectability and credibility. It's only the ramblings of pharma pimps but the media lap it up anyway. These sockpuppets earn a fortune and don't want to see the gravy train come to an end.
Check out virtually any [country name goes here][body part goes here] 'association' and see where their funding comes from: pharma pays the staff, and pays them well. They work to pharma's agenda - and in the smoking-related field that means against public health, if they are publishing propaganda designed to work against ecigs and Snus for example.
A measurable number of government jobs depend entirely on smoking. These jobs range from Dept of Health positions through to tax revenue collection. Included in there are various regulators. It should be fairly obvious that no government employee is going to enact regulations or otherwise work toward removing their own job; the opposite is more likely to be true. Add in the fact that pharma (and maybe some cigarette firms as well) are very generous indeed to government staff who can help.
The problem is not that the ecig vendors will take over those income channels - they can't and they won't - it's that the ecig revolution will turn off the tap on the vast money flow to everyone else. Huge sums of money will stop flowing. For example ecigs are likely to cost pharma $60bn a year at some stage - their income will probably take a 60% cut across the board in anything relating directly to smoking, plus another hit on general meds and ancillaries that are boosted by people just being sicker if they smoke.
None of these people are going to sit back and let you take away their vast incomes. Their first port of call will be to buy regulators and politicians as that's the cheapest and easiest way to fix the problem and make us go away. Now you can see that process already in motion, worldwide. Find someone who speaks out against ecigs and there is a good chance they are funded by one of the potential losers. Find a regulator or politician working against ecigs and you have found a bought & paid for puppet willing to kill on a grand scale to feather their own nest.
The 2012/2013 UK tobacco market (total sales of cigarettes and tobacco) is expected to be £14bn.
The tobacco industry gets £2bn.
The government gets £12bn, the tax proportion of the sale price.
This makes government an 86% stakeholder in tobacco sales, just by main street sales revenue alone.
There's more to add though: the savings to government resulting from cigarette sales are estimated as a minimum of £10bn per annum, as smokers are said to die 8 years younger on average, so that the government saves 8 years of pensions at end of life; plus all other social support costs and healthcare etc (healthcare is free to all in the UK and costs a very large amount of money). So, make that a total £22bn gain for government.
However they have to pay out for the cost of treating sick and dying smokers, which is £3bn annually through the NHS (national health service). Net gain is therefore £19bn.
This makes government a 90% stakeholder in tobacco sales: their take is so large that essentially you buy your cigarettes from the government. Government is a 9 to 1 partner in tobacco.
The pharmaceutical industry earns £1.5bn per annum from the NHS for the treatment of sick smokers (half the cost of treatment is the drug costs).
Add in: at least £100m through the private healthcare system.
Add in: the increment in all drug sales due to smokers being less healthy and needing more of any/all drugs (such as diabetes drugs), which are not factored in to NHS's declared cost of treating smokers - let's conservatively say £250m.
Add in: 50% of the cost of the cost of NHS SSS (stop smoking services) for the drugs used, which must also be added: £100m a year.
Add in: retail sales of OTC meds that individuals buy because they are smokers; maybe £100m although that is probably low (this is the OTC market for NRTs, chest meds etc).
So pharma makes £2.05bn per annum from smoking in the UK - equal to or more than the tobacco industry earns. Pharma is a 50-50 partner with the tobacco industry on straight sales earnings from smoking.
Pharma can't publish diatribes against commercial competitors especially when those rivals look as if they are doing a better, cheaper job. Instead they buy medics, researchers and academics to publish the lies and propaganda they need promulgating, and which gives the disinformation an air of respectability and credibility. It's only the ramblings of pharma pimps but the media lap it up anyway. These sockpuppets earn a fortune and don't want to see the gravy train come to an end.
Check out virtually any [country name goes here][body part goes here] 'association' and see where their funding comes from: pharma pays the staff, and pays them well. They work to pharma's agenda - and in the smoking-related field that means against public health, if they are publishing propaganda designed to work against ecigs and Snus for example.
A measurable number of government jobs depend entirely on smoking. These jobs range from Dept of Health positions through to tax revenue collection. Included in there are various regulators. It should be fairly obvious that no government employee is going to enact regulations or otherwise work toward removing their own job; the opposite is more likely to be true. Add in the fact that pharma (and maybe some cigarette firms as well) are very generous indeed to government staff who can help.
The problem is not that the ecig vendors will take over those income channels - they can't and they won't - it's that the ecig revolution will turn off the tap on the vast money flow to everyone else. Huge sums of money will stop flowing. For example ecigs are likely to cost pharma $60bn a year at some stage - their income will probably take a 60% cut across the board in anything relating directly to smoking, plus another hit on general meds and ancillaries that are boosted by people just being sicker if they smoke.
None of these people are going to sit back and let you take away their vast incomes. Their first port of call will be to buy regulators and politicians as that's the cheapest and easiest way to fix the problem and make us go away. Now you can see that process already in motion, worldwide. Find someone who speaks out against ecigs and there is a good chance they are funded by one of the potential losers. Find a regulator or politician working against ecigs and you have found a bought & paid for puppet willing to kill on a grand scale to feather their own nest.
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in essence the antidote to this is to somehow on a global scale release the proverbial moth into the sock puppet drawer
Rolygate, where did you get these statistics from please?! Those are some craaaaaaaaaaaazy numbers! I'm fascinated by the taxation/money side of things!x
Rachy, most of these figures are available from official or industry sources. For example:
- Tobacco sales figures / projections can be found from many sources, I used an average-to-low number in order not to be accused of amplifying the issue in any way. I did the same for all of these figures as far as I am concerned, which is in line with my normal policy. As an example, ASH UK say there were 650,000 UK ecig users back in 2012, which would indicate there are 750,000+ by their reckoning now. All I will confirm is that there are over 0.5m, so that people can't accuse me of jacking anything up.
Tax revenue from tobacco » Tobacco Manufacturers' Association
http://ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_123.pdf
Just google for these figures, there are many different sources, most don't agree with each other. I try to pick a mean figure or at least one not at the top end. That takes care of tobacco sales and tax revenue.
- Cost of treating sick smokers: these figures are given year on year by the UK gov via the Dept of Health. They have conducted a very strong campaign to hide the cost of the drugs in the past, by deliberately omitting it or burying the figures carefully so that this cost was hard to find but they could say they had published it. So don't expect to find it easily. My mental 'graph' of the meds cost to the NHS tells me that it used to be 40% of the total NHS cost of treating ill smokers but that the percentage has risen and is likely to be 50% now. They make conscious efforts to hide or misrepresent this figure though, for some reason, so take nothing for granted when you find sources - there is a strong possibility you are not being told the whole story when it comes to NHS drug costs and what they are prepared to reveal to you. Why this is the case bears some investigation, I don't think anyone has looked at this.
An excellent example of this deliberate misrepresentation when it comes to drug costs is a figure quoted by the NHS for the cost of their smoking cessation program. They have quoted a 'cost per quitter' figure that is positively fraudulent: it is taken at the 6-month mark (a useless timepoint by any measure since the numbers of successful subjects at the realistic endpoint at 20 months will be one-third of the number at 6 months), and is half the real cost as it doesn't include the drugs cost, which appears to be half of NHS costs across the board, at least in this area of healthcare. They admit to the drug cost deep within the fine print, so we do know what it is. As far as I am concerned, Dept of Health drug cost admissions verge on the fraudulent in many of these areas surrounding smoking costs, for some reason. You have to both dig deep to find the real numbers, and also have an appreciation of costs in past years in order to be able to estimate the validity of what they are telling you. In my experience the drug cost is now equal to the 'NHS cost' they quote; in other words the drug cost is 50% of the final bill.
- Pharma's smoking-related income: some figures are basic information that is easily located, such as that the drug costs of NHS treatment of smokers is now about 50% of the total bill (it rises year on year, although equally that may be because the NHS is becoming more efficient, I cannot investigate that). Other figures are my estimations based on past figures and available information. In general I would say that my approach is conservative, the numbers are likely to be larger.
I can't see any other way of calculating it that results in pharma earning less than the tobacco industry from smoking, though. The numbers are basically very simple and can be located or derived easily enough. NRT sales for example.
It is impossible to get away from the basic facts:
1. You buy your cigarettes from the government, since they are a 90% stakeholder in tobacco sales. Ask yourself: in the current economic situation, are you seriously saying that there aren't government staff who want to preserve the status quo?
2. Pharma earns just as much as tobacco does from smoking. The end result is all the pharma pimps out there screaming their heads off against ecigs. Check out how many are funded by Pfizer, who have a huge investment in the drugs to treat sick smokers and are the manufacturers of Chantix. Pfizer incidentally are officially and legally the world's second-largest criminal fraudsters and criminal corruptors (after another pharma corp, GSK, the world leaders in fraud and corruption). Just google 'pfizer fraud', 'gsk fraud', 'abbot labs fraud' etc.
3. There is a well-recognised development in government admin called 'regulatory capture'. It refers to the fact that a government agency set up to regulate and control an industry, for the public good, ends up being owned by that industry and working for them against the public where there is a conflict. It is commonly seen in the arms, oil, pharma and environment agencies. The reason is threefold: (a) government employees and industry employees become very close; (b) in the end they are the same, because industry staff move into the regulator's office and government staff take up positions in the industry; and (c) government staff earn maybe $50k a year but the industry can pay them another $250k a year to do as they say.
The world's best example of a regulatory-captured agency is the FDA, who work for pharma especially where there is any conflict between pharma income and public health. There is so much evidence for this that the FDA cannot sue anyone for publishing this information, there are too many FDA ex-staff who will attest to it. Even the Director of the FDA was quoted by a senior administrator as saying, "Our client is the pharmaceutical industry not the public". The MHRA is the UK equivalent.
Their main mode of corruption now is the revolving-door staff game, which leaves no embarrassing papertrail of payments to offshore bank accounts. It works like this:
a. Government staff are not prohibited from moving to jobs in the industry, which leaves the door open for massive potential for corruption.
b. They are persuaded to work for pharma while in office in the pharma regulator.
c. At a later date they move to an industry job at 3x their government pay, as a reward for services rendered.
d. They might even get a non-executive board position, meaning a paid 'job' with no work.
e. These positions may also be with 'cut-outs', that is, third-party employers who can be said to have little connection with the pharma firm who corrupted the government employee (such as a foundation).
It is a brilliant system that leaves no papertrail and directly results in the loss of thousands of lives while benefitting only pharma and the poorly-paid government employee. It's undetectable and foolproof. Indeed the only way you can discover it is by looking at who is an obvious pharma pimp in a government regulatory agency, and who is clearly working against public health. That person will be working for pharma (or a cut-out) and very well paid indeed in five years or so.
Governments that don't prohibit staff movement between regulator and industry are actively promoting corruption.
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And I'll say again. " The Moderators of ECF such as Roly, rock cause they can back up what they say". Thanks to each and everyone of you all. 
In the UK right now the biggest risk to ecigs is the MHRA (government pharmacuticals regulatory body) who are due to report in March.
In 2010 they recommended that ecigs should be banned within 21 days.
Then we had an election, the party in government changed, and the new one introduced another body called the RCP to 'check the sanity' of MHRA rulings. The RCP told them to go away, do their studies properly, and report back in March this year.
There have been rumours of 'light touch' regulation but it is likely that the MHRA will either support EU rulings or have even stricter requirements.
In the meantime BAT have bought Intellicig, which now has a very glossy R & D webpage. Intellicig sells three flavours, light tobacco, rich tobacco and menthol, in cartomisers. I suspect that BAT want pharma regulation and intend to obtain licenses for theor products for smoking cessation (the only legitimate official reason for vaping). Intellicig do sell strengths up to 36 mg/ml.
Most if the vapers I know moved on from cigalikes quickly. The ones who don't tend to use them in social situations where smokming is banned but smoke most of the time.
The main reason I've found for people taking up vaping is that it's so much cheaper than smoking, although health does play a part.
I think I'm fairly typical. I've used NRT so many times I lost count, never really wanted to quit that much anyway, and would never have tried ecigs if they were NRT. As the longest I was cigarette free on that was 3 days (and a nic overdose) more NRT I'd just think was a waste of time and money.
I bought a cigalike mainly to cut down the amount of cigarettes because they were so expensive, but also because I was getting short of breath and had bronchitis every time I caught a cold. Halved the cigarettes with cigalikes, moved to egos and halved again, developing a dislike for the taste of tobacco eliquid on the way. I already hated menthol.
Bow I have modes, rebuildable atties, a cupboard full of juice, I'm healthoer, I've moved from being on the point of having to take drugs for high blood pressure to it being good without drugs. I'm better off financially in spite of the money spent on vaping gear.
And THEY want to take it all away! I smoked 40 a day for 50 years so that would be win-win-win as I'd be smoking again.
If counterfeit cigarettes weren't so disgusting and full of even more dangerous chemicals I'd choose them over paying the government for them.
Some friends have been discussing the best way to sell black-market juice. After all, the WHO want to ban it. The Maldives made a mistake in tnheir laws and banned the growing of potatoes and tomatoes because they're the same family as tobacco!
In 2010 they recommended that ecigs should be banned within 21 days.
Then we had an election, the party in government changed, and the new one introduced another body called the RCP to 'check the sanity' of MHRA rulings. The RCP told them to go away, do their studies properly, and report back in March this year.
There have been rumours of 'light touch' regulation but it is likely that the MHRA will either support EU rulings or have even stricter requirements.
In the meantime BAT have bought Intellicig, which now has a very glossy R & D webpage. Intellicig sells three flavours, light tobacco, rich tobacco and menthol, in cartomisers. I suspect that BAT want pharma regulation and intend to obtain licenses for theor products for smoking cessation (the only legitimate official reason for vaping). Intellicig do sell strengths up to 36 mg/ml.
Most if the vapers I know moved on from cigalikes quickly. The ones who don't tend to use them in social situations where smokming is banned but smoke most of the time.
The main reason I've found for people taking up vaping is that it's so much cheaper than smoking, although health does play a part.
I think I'm fairly typical. I've used NRT so many times I lost count, never really wanted to quit that much anyway, and would never have tried ecigs if they were NRT. As the longest I was cigarette free on that was 3 days (and a nic overdose) more NRT I'd just think was a waste of time and money.
I bought a cigalike mainly to cut down the amount of cigarettes because they were so expensive, but also because I was getting short of breath and had bronchitis every time I caught a cold. Halved the cigarettes with cigalikes, moved to egos and halved again, developing a dislike for the taste of tobacco eliquid on the way. I already hated menthol.
Bow I have modes, rebuildable atties, a cupboard full of juice, I'm healthoer, I've moved from being on the point of having to take drugs for high blood pressure to it being good without drugs. I'm better off financially in spite of the money spent on vaping gear.
And THEY want to take it all away! I smoked 40 a day for 50 years so that would be win-win-win as I'd be smoking again.
If counterfeit cigarettes weren't so disgusting and full of even more dangerous chemicals I'd choose them over paying the government for them.
Some friends have been discussing the best way to sell black-market juice. After all, the WHO want to ban it. The Maldives made a mistake in tnheir laws and banned the growing of potatoes and tomatoes because they're the same family as tobacco!
Anna, a minor point: Intellicig have introduced a new highest retail nicotine strength of 45mg (4.5%). This is because their clinical trials with mini ecigs (and three trials by others such as Vansickel, Eissenberg, Bullen) showed that beginners with minis, using regular e-liquid strengths, had zero or very little nicotine measurable in blood plasma nicotine level tests.
They are likely to receive an MA for this, some time this year: the marketing authorisation that allows them to sell the product as a licensed pharmaceutical. This tells us that 36mg is not strong enough for some beginners with mini ecigs; the blood plasma nicotine tests don't lie.
You also have to factor in the data we have collated on ECF, which tells us that there is a factor-10 difference in individual tolerance to nicotine. What this means is:
So there is a very wide range of variation between individuals, and some need far more of [anything] than others. Part of the reason for the success of the electronic cigarette system is the vast range of options available. It's like tea: if you could only buy green tea, and only one brand of it, then tea would disappear from view as a popular drink. It works because there are thousands of options.
They are likely to receive an MA for this, some time this year: the marketing authorisation that allows them to sell the product as a licensed pharmaceutical. This tells us that 36mg is not strong enough for some beginners with mini ecigs; the blood plasma nicotine tests don't lie.
You also have to factor in the data we have collated on ECF, which tells us that there is a factor-10 difference in individual tolerance to nicotine. What this means is:
- A mean strength (somewhere in the middle of the range) is 5 times too weak for some users, and 5 times too strong for others.
- The lowest strength of 6mg (0.6%) is satisfactory for some users (and 12mg / 1.2% is too strong). This strength is effectively useless for all other users as it is too weak.
- An ultra-high strength of 60mg (6%) is required by some users with a super-high tolerance to nicotine. Anything weaker is unsatisfactory as it leads to cravings. These users demonstrate no symptoms of over-consumption. They appear to be impervious to nicotine poisoning, at least at the amounts needed to affect other more typical individuals.
So there is a very wide range of variation between individuals, and some need far more of [anything] than others. Part of the reason for the success of the electronic cigarette system is the vast range of options available. It's like tea: if you could only buy green tea, and only one brand of it, then tea would disappear from view as a popular drink. It works because there are thousands of options.
Excellent analogy
And a very good point, one which is rarely taken into account on any subject when it comes to regulation. I know this is particularly true of the US, but I'm sure it also applies in other localities, where lawmakers and regulatory bodies only care about a "one size fits all" approach, which I see as a cop-out on their parts (searching for the easiest road for them while still appearing to the general public as having made progress).- Status
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