The story of how the anti-smoking lobby and their government friends played right into the hands of Big Tobacco.
I talk quite a lot to entrepreneurs in the e-cigarette industry. Or talk and talk. Interviews are usually done via messenger. Phone calls are hard to do when the interviewee is behind the counter in their store or buried in paperwork and order lists.
But that's how it looks.
The world of Vejp is made up of small business owners, with little time for anything but the basics. I therefore smile when I read about it cynical "e-cigarette industry" marketing to children with "colorful packaging" and "candy flavors" on "social media".
Marketing? Industry?
Jojjo. A picture of the face of a nicotine-free juice, a little too rarely to matter much. A banner on the homepage mentioning something about "good effect" and something else "cool". Maybe some color. And then the next customer comes, next form from the public health authority, next lunch with accounting and cold pizza.
Not exactly the setup for thoughtful marketing.
The world of tobacco companies is different
A little comparison. I had to write an article about snus the other day. I wanted to include a voice on Swedish snus history and of course I called up the Swedish Snus Museum. Yes, there is one, owned by Swedish big tobacco, Swedish Match(Talk about marketing). Exchanged a few words with the museum director, who asked to call back shortly. The hours passed. When the phone rings, it's not the nice woman from the museum calling. Instead, it's a brisk gentleman from the Swedish Match marketing department. He wants to know what I am looking for, "really".
"It's a quiet week now, the quarterly report is released and we don't talk to the media. And the staff at the museum know nothing about this!" says big tobacco.
He eventually calms down. It's all about historical issues. Harmless. In the end, he talks to the museum again. He wanted to "just check".
Quiet week or cuts
This says a lot about the different worlds in which tobacco companies and vejpcompanies in Sweden are in.
One has a marketing department that worries for leaks ahead of the quarterly report (and has a finger on every media thread). The other worries about the red figure in the accounts, where the solution is either fewer staff hours or less time to develop the business, to offer better juices, more starter kits to convert smokers.
One chooses a 'silent media period'.
The other answers questions on the fly, happy for the attention, between customers demanding better strawberry flavor, calling coils a filter (it's NOT a filter!) and wondering if the vejp will explode when the e-juice runs out.
Into the same world
Two worlds, then. But a few years ago, they were forced into the same world, at least in terms of legislation. A more or less worldwide trend transformed in a flash tobacco-free products, which e-cigarettes actually are, to tobacco products. E-cigs became, in the eyes of the law, the very product they were set out to eradicate from the world. Despite the fact that, according to a growing scientific consensus, the technology is significantly less harmful than cigarette smoking (below 5% of all risks) and definitely helps smokers quit cigarettes.
Threatening an ideological model
And it soon became clear what it would be about. Everything, which somehow risked destroying costly and very ideologically driven tobacco prevention, was to be removed. Add to that incentives to drive smokers to drugs that will 'help' them quit smoking.
Prohibition of tasting, long overdue for cigarettes, will now also apply to e-juice and e-cigarettes (but not nicotine gum, mind you).
Smoking bans would also apply to e-cigarettes - even though they don't emit smoke (and are unlikely to affect anyone other than the user)
Tobacco marketing bans also stop advertising of e-cigarettes. (But not, of course, fruit-flavored nicotine medicines).
Add to that special rules for e-cigs and e-juice whose sole purpose is to make the products a little less attractive; lower nicotine levels and limitations on the capacity of the devices, limitations on flavorings.
Playing into the hands of tobacco companies
You can think what you want about this. But they moneyed lobby groupswho fought to make this type of legislation a reality, have done a great job! Their purpose is admittedly murky, with some funding coming from pharmaceutical companies selling nicotine medicines (surprise!). But that's another story. The serious thing here is that this development plays right into the hands of the tobacco companies.
Why is this the case?
Yes, they do. Tobacco companies do not really need to adapt to the "new" order at all, at least not to any serious extent. Varying flavors, nicotine levels, sizes of bottles and tanks, are not relevant to their main products - cigarettes. People smoke anyway, regardless of the nicotine content of the cigarette or the size of the packet. And if, by chance, some regulation were to affect their product range (say, a flavor ban), it's not a big deal. Although tobacco companies also sell e-cigs in the form of pod systems and disposable variants, this is still only a fraction of the range. What does it matter if only ONE flavor is allowed on the market? It doesn't. They have spent decades influencing legislation, adapting to ultimately be able to continue sell authorized productswithout having to worry about either the harm or the consequences.
Seal fetus and menthol
It is becoming increasingly clear that tobacco legislation is the tobacco companies' element and today's tobacco prevention is molded in and around their shape. They have built a huge market, filled to the brim with products, attracting new users for decades. It does not matter if they have to have dead seal fetuses on the packaging (Incidentally, they add other flavors, such as vanilla and chocolate, to the tobacco, but the regulators don't seem to care - why don't we ever talk about that?) Plus, the smoking they've been living on is a cash cow for other pharmaceutical companies - stop-smoking products are a huge market.
So tobacco companies survive - with the anti-smoking lobby's blessing.
E-cigs are variety
Vaping companies have always exploited the weaknesses of tobacco and pharmaceutical companies: the crass uniformity and the medicalized view of smokers. Vaping is built on passionate variety. It's borderline annoying (there's almost TOO much), but variety has been the lynchpin and strength of the products. Choice in terms of flavors, appearance, hot or cold, large or small, nicotine-free or nicotine tin. You name it. It's created a sumptuous range that far surpasses the somewhat rigid and streamlined business concept of tobacco companies. These are the brands that scream "alternative" and therefore successfully attracts many smokers to switch nicotine sources. The message is that smokers are not sick - they are people who like to enjoy life. And no, it's not poor 15-year-olds who are the target audience, it's well-established, working smokers who are happy to spend their money on nicotine.
Too little big business
Tobacco companies have been trying to enter this market for years. But it never really works out. Too much variety. And too many demands from consumers looking for constant change. Too much emotion, and too little business. None fun quarterly reports, either.
And it couldn't go on like that forever.
Competing with variety and flavors
Since authorities and politicians decided to classify vejp products as tobacco products, there has only been one winner. Because what happens if vejp products are scaled down and lose their variety? Yes, they suddenly lose any market advantage they ever had over their cigarette-selling competitors.
On the tobacco companies' terms, the independents don't stand a chance. It's like a football match where one team is fully kitted out, golfing with the referee and making out with the linesman. The away team, on the other hand, gets to play without shoes and shin guards and does the whole the match in a sharp reverse. Who do you think will win that battle?
Substandard products = more smokers
I have no illusions about changing anything. But as a former smoker, now a vejpar, and having stood behind the till in a vejpshop for many years, I know the enormous power of e-cigarettes to change a smoker's life. That realization does not change, despite the constant threat of tasting ban, sky-high excise duties and despite legislation that paves the way way for tobacco companies' (so far) not very attractive electronic alternatives.
Changing the lives of smokers
Vejpning is about passion and the will to change. It has been about a fight against authority, whether the power lies with political lobby groups with their fingers in the tobacco prevention drug jam, or authorities who would like to believe that e-juice is squeezed like juice from a tobacco plant.
Vaping is all about changing the lives of smokers, by enticing them with something tastier than cigarettes.
And it does vejp companies better than all the doctors, quit-smoking lines and overpaid lobbyists combined. If only we allow it.
Will absolutely support you via patreon, Because what you do is so important I think. But right now it's a bit of an uphill battle but as soon as it levels out a bit I will contribute to 100% if so the lowest contribution per month but it feels important to me to be able to support your work, Nowadays only share your message. fight on Stefan .
Spreading what I do is worth its weight in gold, Ken! It makes it all so much more fun!
Incredibly good text and to the point.
I even think it is so bad that authorities understand that they are throwing money in the mouth of BIG TOBACCO and BIG PHARMA. I think they find it easier to control a few players than the diversified ecosystem that e-cigarettes represent.
I don't think they are even interested in right or wrong, in morals and ethics or in what has the best chance of getting smoking out of society. In their eyes, it's easier to be able to slowly, slowly squeeze a few identified suppliers while sucking as much tax money as possible out of smokers, than to have to wage war on many fronts. Much easier to have BIG TOBACCO to blame and BIG PHARMA to praise, while pumping in as much money as possible.