The article was actually encouraging. Seems like the FDA might be going for a THR approach.
Whats your ideas on age verification and are E-cigs gonna end up in bed with BT
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Age verification will undoubtedly be used as a vaporscreen by PV opponents.
The real issue is that each state (and a number of local jurisdictions) will both want to levy and need to collect their own specific levels of taxation. They'll claim that they want to levy the taxes in order to keep minors from vaping (and/or becoming addicted to nicotine and/or taking up analogs). But the true motive will be fiscal need.
If the number of vapers doubles every year, we'll outnumber smokers by the end of 2017. (Right now it's 3M vs. 40M or so.) If even half of those est'd 24M vapers have quit completely by '17, that will yield almost a 1/3 drop in cigarette tax revenues - even assuming that the rest of the vapers keep smoking as many analogs as they were in the past ... which of course they won't, so the revenue shortfall will be closer to half.
And while it's possible for state and local jurisdictions to go after the larger internet retailers for taxes (as they've done w/ analogs), it's expensive, and they lose revenue in the short term. Not to mention the fact that they'll never get it all back.
So no matter what anyone does to solve the problem of age verification, the pressure on members of Congress to require F2F sale transations will become irresistable - long before vapers outnumber smokers. Otherwise the folks back home will blame them for the lost tax revenue.
The states are arlready going to get clobbered by the bonds they issued against the securitized MSA payments, which of course will be shrinking at the same rate as their analog tax revenues. It'll be a double whammy.
The real issue is that each state (and a number of local jurisdictions) will both want to levy and need to collect their own specific levels of taxation. They'll claim that they want to levy the taxes in order to keep minors from vaping (and/or becoming addicted to nicotine and/or taking up analogs). But the true motive will be fiscal need.
If the number of vapers doubles every year, we'll outnumber smokers by the end of 2017. (Right now it's 3M vs. 40M or so.) If even half of those est'd 24M vapers have quit completely by '17, that will yield almost a 1/3 drop in cigarette tax revenues - even assuming that the rest of the vapers keep smoking as many analogs as they were in the past ... which of course they won't, so the revenue shortfall will be closer to half.
And while it's possible for state and local jurisdictions to go after the larger internet retailers for taxes (as they've done w/ analogs), it's expensive, and they lose revenue in the short term. Not to mention the fact that they'll never get it all back.
So no matter what anyone does to solve the problem of age verification, the pressure on members of Congress to require F2F sale transations will become irresistable - long before vapers outnumber smokers. Otherwise the folks back home will blame them for the lost tax revenue.
The states are arlready going to get clobbered by the bonds they issued against the securitized MSA payments, which of course will be shrinking at the same rate as their analog tax revenues. It'll be a double whammy.
Yes, vaping is going to create a fiscal crisis on a lot of fronts. The e cigarette is very dangerous, but not for health reasons.
There ya go. It's like John Lennon being The Most Dangerous Man In America. Because peace is in no way profitable.
I completely agree here.
Legal age-restrictions are all over the place and long-established all over the world - think alcohol, or entry into alcohol-serving premises. And anyone involved in enforcing these restrictions knows full well that while these restrictions work pretty well, no age restriction in history ever has or ever will work 100% of the time.
So this is how restrictions work in practice:
- Discourage vendors from selling to minors, without even bringing enforcement into play.
- Discourage under-age buyers from attempting to buy, without even brining enforcement into play.
- Encourage vendors to check age of buyers in a practical way.
- Allow the law to come down heavily on vendors who do sell to under-age buyers.
- Allow the authorities to spend some (finite) resources on checking that the restriction is being obeyed.
What no restriction has ever done or ever do is:
- Act as a Global Total Information Network, launching immediate SWAT-team intervention if just ONE under-age buyer succeeds in buying what they're not allowed to, with the Evil Substance being snatched out their innocent little hands with only moments to spare, while the offending vendor dies in a hail of bullets, just before the final credits.
This, however, is what will be demanded of e-cig vendors. Because prohibitionists are frustrated. Being a prohibitionist is a frustrating business, because you can never fully achieve your aim. Sane prohibitionists deal with this and do what they can. Insane prohibitionists think they can finally redeem themselves from the years of frustration, this time, by insisting on an insanely costly, complicated, time-consuming series of checks that will finally, this time, guarantee that not ONE under-age person will ever get their hands on an e-cig or e-juice, from now until the heat death of the Universe, Amen. Except that even the insanely complicated system will not, in fact, actually achieve this.
And e-cigs are not just being targeted by prohibitionists - they're being targeted by thoroughly, proven insane prohibitionists.
The thinking behind this insistence is that just ONE under-age person getting hold of an e-cig is a public-health disaster in the same league as smallpox escaping from the labs.
They are screaming over an appetite suppressor while lobbying for appetite increasers. Did you hear the one about the Girl Scout cookie seller ...l
A signature upon delivery is all that's needed, if that. The adults are the ones responsible for their CC and children both.
There needs to be a law against the likes of DICKenson, not against consumers.
Will there be sig-a-grams carriers running around, door to door, collecting Sigs every time someone clicks on a ........, "R" rated movie, purchases a "for mature audiences only" video game, clicks on an online poker game because pretend poker leads to real poker, while purchasing Vaseline or duct tape, .. The sky's the limit. Vaping a safer alternative is the least of a parents worries, especially if it's zero nic or if their kid had previously smoked.
I don't believe we should be compromisng at all. The banks have our info, the rest is up to the adult, the parent.
A signature upon delivery is all that's needed, if that. The adults are the ones responsible for their CC and children both.
There needs to be a law against the likes of DICKenson, not against consumers.
Will there be sig-a-grams carriers running around, door to door, collecting Sigs every time someone clicks on a ........, "R" rated movie, purchases a "for mature audiences only" video game, clicks on an online poker game because pretend poker leads to real poker, while purchasing Vaseline or duct tape, .. The sky's the limit. Vaping a safer alternative is the least of a parents worries, especially if it's zero nic or if their kid had previously smoked.
I don't believe we should be compromisng at all. The banks have our info, the rest is up to the adult, the parent.
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I buy high-end wine online. There is a well established and widely used infrastructure available to verify the age of the customer purchasing age-restricted products. This argument against ecigs is simply ludicrous.
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