"A ban would be a disaster for public health"
"Prohibition has never worked in the US. It didn't work with alcohol. It doesn't work with marijuana, and it won't work with e-cigarettes". So says Gregory Conely of the American Vape Organisation (AVA), commenting on Donald Trump's announcement to ban the sale of flavoured e-juice nationwide.
The announcement came after several deaths and over 400 cases of illness, as reported by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), linked to vejping of THC-filled e-juices. However, the Trump administration has chosen to focus on flavours, which they claim attract young people to use e-cigarettes.
- We want to clear the market from flavoured e-cigarettes, announced the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar on Wednesday.
According to Alex Azar, the ban will apply to all flavours, except tobacco flavours.
- But if we find that young people are attracted to these flavours, the ban will apply to them as well," said Alex Azar.
"Public health threatened by the ban"
The protests have already started and several public health commentators, researchers and business organisations have commented on the announcement.
- A ban would be a disaster for public health. Many ex-smokers who now vejpar would return to smoking tobacco. We would also have a completely uncontrolled black market for flavoured e-juice," says the commentator and experienced public health researcher. Michael Seigel in a post on Twitter (vaping360)
Roadside shops are going under
The vape industry in the US consists of well over 10,000 players in the form of e-juice manufacturers, flavour manufacturers, vejp shops and hardware manufacturers. A ban on the most profitable product, e-juice, would hit the industry extremely hard, it says. Gregory Conely, AVA.
- The over 10,000 vejp shoppers here in the US would go under in no time. We're talking about 100,000 jobs that would be lost if this happens. The only people that would benefit from this is the tobacco industry. People would start smoking again," he says. Gregory Conely in a debate on TV station CNN (facebook)
Aggressive anti-vejp organisations
Several vejp organisations are now mobilising to try to influence the Trump administration's decision. But even the groups that have long worked to ban not just flavours but e-cigarettes in general are now focusing on major campaigns to make the decision a reality.
The US currently has a limited regulatory framework to deal with vejp products. Age limits and local control of e-juice production are already in place, but a more comprehensive regulatory framework with pre-market registration of all vejp products is planned to come into force in 2020.
However, the regulations have been heavily criticised because they risk knocking out a large part of the American vejp industry due to an extremely expensive administration fee. Only larger companies, in practice parts of tobacco companies, will be able to cope with the regulations, financially speaking, according to the report. the online magazine vaping360.
