The Confusion Over the FDA
The FDA is leaving many questions hanging over the vaping industry. On the one hand, I do not think they don’t wish to stifle a budding industry that is creating economic activity for thousands upon thousands of people. On the other hand, they wish to create standards that they believe will help the industry thrive without creating undue harm.
The problems come in when the FDA decides that they know what they do not actually know. They have decided that this industry is the same as the tobacco industry. It is unequivocally not the same. We have wholly different products. The only thing that is the same is that you can get nicotine from both products.
So to go through these regulations we find that there are a number of problems with them that needs to be address so that we can continue to help people save and extend their lives by switching to vaping.
The FDA believes that we are increasing consumption with children.
This is fundamentally wrong. There is not a vape shop that I know of who will sell to people under 18. I can tell you in our shop we card those who look under 25. We will not sell our products to those under 18.
The belief that vaping is increasing consumption of nicotine has also been proven wrong. Research has shown in England, that the rate of increase in consumption of nicotine has continued to decrease even as more and more people switch to vaping. There is nothing that has shown an increase in this area.
If you are actually looking at the studies, it shows that even though use of vaping is increasing among youth who already smoke, it is because they have already started to smoke. It is likely they do not care about that, just the raw numbers.
FDA believes that they need standards in the making of e liquid.
Many people may disagree with this, but it is actually something that makes sense. While being able to adjust and make to order juices is great, people do not understand that there are drawbacks to this as well. While most places try very hard to be as accurate as possible, it will never be one hundred percent on the money.
There is also the fact it is being made in air that is not pure. This will inevitably lead to foreign particles being inside the juice that you are going to be vaping on. This is why we have taken the steps to ensure that where we make our premium line is the highest quality that we could get, a Class 5 ISO clean room, and we have also brought in people who are trained to the highest standard to make our premium e liquid.
Also, if you look throughout the vape industry, you will find that there are no longer things like dicetyl, which is the main component in popcorn lung. It is being shunned by companies and consumers alike, and for probably upwards of 95% of the industry no longer uses this products. Yet, in cigarettes there is 750 times the amount of dicetyl in them, and there is no huge uproar over the sale of something that is known to kill people.
The FDA does not know the long-term effects of vaping.
I feel like I shouldn’t even have to discuss this, as there is scientific study after scientific study that shows that the effects are better than combustible tobacco. As long as they continue to ignore science, we cannot make headway in this area.
Then we have all the anecdotal evidence in our day to day lives. People come in, quit smoking, say they can actually breath again. They don’t wake up with tar in their mouth, coughing up a storm. Their skin looks healthier; their taste buds come back, their able to walk without getting winded. We have reports also about people having precancerous spots on their lungs and they made the switch. Two months later, their lungs are clear.
The government is willfully ignoring the known effects of vaping. When a government such as England puts out studies, it would behoove our government to pay attention to things like that. I mean that whole common sense thing and all.
The FDA believes that anything that was made after 2007 should be taxed retroactively.
The FDA does not even realize that the entire industry has changed since 3 years ago, let alone almost a decade ago. February 15th 2007, is the date that the FDA believes we should go back to and force every product that has come on to the market since then to pay for the privilege of the FDA’s approval.
It is utter nonsense, and we are hoping for the Office of Management and Budget to strike this down, otherwise it will have to be an issue that is brought to the courts. If the FDA doesn’t recognize that they don’t know anything about the vape industry, it will be a battle worth having.
To do the Premarket Tobacco Application on every line of juice that a vape shop carries could potentially lead to costs totaling in the millions just for one vape shop. When you figure in that there are tens of thousands of shops and e liquid companies in the country, then the costs reaches billions upon billions of dollars in taxes that otherwise would not have been paid, and who does that tax money go to? We are not really sure.
If their purpose is to bankrupt vape companies and put people out of work, then job well done FDA.
The FDA does not really understand the vape industry, but wants to regulate it anyway.
The vape industry prides itself on being open and honest. We are trying to give people their freedom back. With that, we recognize that we can do things better, and every year we are learning and developing better processes. People wouldn’t be coming back time and time again unless it was helping them.
They have also claimed they want child resistant locks and warnings on bottles that contain liquid nicotine. Well every bottle of e liquid that I have received in the past has always had child resistant caps on them. It just makes you want to scream at them to do their homework. If they are not capable of seeing that the vape industry sets a pretty high standard for itself, then they are not really capable of making the rules to govern it.
Setting The Standard Is Being Better Then The FDA
And that is how we operate here at MSS. We are already going above and beyond what the FDA wants us to. Where our juices are made, who they are made by, the way that they are made, the quality of products that they are made with. We can show and attest to the fact that everything we do here is to set a standard so high that the government will not be able to touch us on these products.
It is very important, though, that the vape industry stands as one to make sure that we do not allow the government to quell an industry that is actually helping people. We cannot allow the big tobacco companies to win out because they have more money and have friends in higher places. The whole point is to take their customers and turn them into non-customers, i.e. save lives.
