Vapers, polish your e-cigarettes and prepare for battle! On Thursday May 5, the FDA brought the federal banhammer down on electronic cigarettes. This will undoubtedly have wide ranging repercussions not only in the US, but the whole world. The nutshell version: More than 99% of e-cigarette and e-liquid producers are expected to exit the market, because the FDA ruling basically means you have to spend approximately 1 million dollars per e-liquid for testing and approval. That's not all, either. Say you have 5 nicotine levels for a given eliquid. In this case, you would have to spend 5 million dollars to get each approved. Lovely, isn't it?
Electronic cigarettes are a public health matter, there are jobs at stake and it seems the FDA does not care whether we live or die. Well, maybe they do care, but only about Big Tobacco. The global tobacco juggernauts have been trying for years to get their terrible vaping products accepted by vapers, but have been failing miserably. So now, FDA gave them a free hand that basically means "give us hundreds of millions of dollars and we will clear the market of competitors". Nice one, FDA. Talk about collusion and corruption at the highest levels. Of course, government oppression is not new. The FDA thinks people won't circumvent their ruling, but that is as wrong as wrong can be. Go ahead FDA, keep playing in your isolated, logically sanitized sandbox while we, consumers and businesses, continue to move forward as we always did.
VAPE ON!