The last 2 years have seen the largest decline in cigarette sales ever - 2010-2011 experienced a 10% decline alone; a recent report from Wells Fargo (repeated by others too) stated that the e-cig market was set to out pace the sale of cigarettes in less than a decade.
Whoopee! A smoke free nation. Can you imagine the savings in public health care costs alone?
Oops. I guess were not in Disneyland anymore. What happened in the 90's was that states co-opted tobacco settlement money, then taxes, to fund public health programs like CHIP. The money didn't go toward cigarette smoking reduction programs or toward health care costs associated with smoking. Now they have to replace it.
RJRenolyds has publicly stated they have mobilized an army of lobbyists in every state to limit and tax e-cigarettes. They consider e-cigarettes unfair competition without the same regulatory overhead that they have.
BTW - RJRenolds recently bought one of the leading cig-look-a-likes, NJoy. I think Phillip Morris just purchased Blu (another look-a-like) and sometime in April, the FDA was to announce new "deeming" regulations for e-cigarettes. According to the "Family Tobacco Act" everything after 2007 would have to go through the FDA for approval - but the FDA never ever approves anything. (> 3,000 new applications pending since then, 0 approvals). Of course, written into that act is an exemption for companies that are grandfathered in, like RJR and Philip Morris.
Another government funded industry is set to become a "too big to fail" monopoly. And Democrats support this.
There is nothing in the tobacco act to protect the health of the public. The FDA is publishing misleading and junk science to get what it wants - and they don't care. The FDA is chaired by industry insiders, including execs from drug companies that are making money on tobacco cessation products (nrt's) who also see e-cigs as competition. The current level of success with NRT's is under 15% at 6 months.
Ironic isn't that the agency in charge of protecting public health is the biggest obstacle to the greatest public health advancement the US has seen in decades.
Sweden reports a 45% reduction in public health spending since using THR (tobacco harm reduction) policies like snus and e-cigs. That's not going to happen here!
This is a bill that will come to every state. That's how it works when corporations write the bills. You can trace every politician sponsoring these bills to industry funding. Democrats (which I'm one) never looked so dirty, so corrupt, so uncaring or so ignorant as they do supporting these bills.
"How stupid can a political party be" -- Frank Zappa
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