WHO, Non Smoking Generation, Doctors Against Tobacco and similar organizations have an agenda that leads to disaster. Now we even have a proposal in the EU for a total ban on disposable e-cigs, and the new Al Capone's office is cheering. "Ka-ching! Guys, they gave us the whole market! Now we celebrate"
The year was 1919, and the temperance movement in the United States, somewhat comically known as the Anti-Saloon League, had won the support of a two-thirds majority in Congress for its plan for a sober and dry America.
On January 16, 1919, Prohibition was passed in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the two chambers of the US Congress. This was done through an amendment to the Constitution called "Volsteadlagen" which entered into force on January 16, 1920.
Did America get "dry and sober"? No, absolutely not!
The result was a disaster and Prohibition finally came to an end on December 5, 1933.
What the sudden lack of supply created was organized smuggling of alcohol, which in many cases was so bad that it led to blindness and death. It also led to the American Mafia growing strong and gaining huge resources to work with. Money flowed to the leaders of the gangs. Al Capone, was one of many organized criminals who used these resources to defend and expand their territories by force and bribery. Shootings were commonplace, and bought-off police and politicians kept the long arm of the law at bay.
Why am I writing now about something that happened, so far away, and a hundred years ago? Well, because the similarities with what is happening with e-cigarettes today are striking.
Believe that nicotine can be eradicated
We have a whole bunch of political parties, support groups and authorities, from the WHO, the Swedish Public Health Agency, the National Board of Health and Welfare to We Who Don't Smoke, the Non Smoking Generation, Doctors Against Tobacco... (the list is very long, but it's the same people behind all the names), who seriously believe that nicotine use can be eradicated through legislation and bans.
We are in the middle of a huge media campaign orchestrated by WHO and Bloomberg which aims to combat anything related to harm reduction. Daily articles in the media right now and the favorite theme is that we have to ban e-cigs because the kids use it, even though you know deep down that the kids do not buy their e-cigs from legal resellers and that further bans do not affect kids' access to e-cigs, quite the opposite, in fact.
Enormous demand - despite taxes and injunctions
The aim is to make it harder and harder for legal retailers to sell popular products, by imposing more regulations, taxes and restrictions and preventing the legal market from selling what many customers actually want. In Sweden alone, this is a market where almost 2 million Swedes are customers - over half of them sniff or use e-cigarettes. The illicit market sees another few million kids as "its market".
If the above-mentioned political groups get their way, we will create the same situation as in the United States after the introduction of alcohol prohibition: a huge demand for a product for which there is virtually no legal supply.
Criminals already have their foot in the door
Organized crime has already shown what it can do. It already has a foothold in the market for electronic cigarettes, particularly disposable models, and the reason it works is that this type of crime is favored by the politicians who have created good conditions for the illegal market.
Why has this happened?
The centrality of technological development
To draw a parallel. The mobile phone market is known for its rapid development where new models annually replace "old" models and overnight the old models are difficult to sell.
For electronic cigarettes, technological progress is happening 100 times faster. There is a new model coming out this week that is actually much better than its predecessors. In Sweden, however, we have a registration period that means that legal retailers are forced to sell old equivalent iPhone 5 at a more expensive price than what the black market charges for the latest top model, the equivalent iPhone 14 pro, with higher capacity and better function.
More profitable than drugs
The Swedish retailers are thus forced to compete with outdated products at a higher price than the black market charges for "the new shiny thing", which is unsustainable.
Moreover, high excise duties only create even bigger profit margins for the black market, as they only need to be slightly cheaper than the legal market.
Today, the sale of e-cigarettes is more profitable than drugs and with low penalties and non-existent border controls, the risks are also significantly lower. Moreover, e-cigs are an important product for the black market as it gives them the opportunity to build relationships with young people, whom they also want to provide with "fun pills".
Cigarettes' days are numbered
We in the consumer movement have been warning about this development for a long time now, and it hurts to see our politicians fall into the same trap as the US did with alcohol.
Politicians can basically just watch it happen. Whatever they do, the e-cigarette will take over smoking for both young smokers and older people who switch from smoking and nothing can stop that development. We are rapidly approaching the first (according to some, the second) generation that does not smoke and just a few more percent of reduced smoking, Sweden is classified as a smoke-free country by the WHO. We should certainly be happy about that, but WHO provides access to this market is up to the politicians.
The good thing about this? Well, this is what the last days of smoking look like! Cigarettes will probably disappear from the market soon.
An agenda that leads to disaster
WHO, Non Smoking Generation, Doctors Against Tobacco and similar organizations have an agenda that leads to disaster. But they are just opinion machines, often with both idealistic and economic motives behind them. Now we even have a proposal in the EU for a total ban on disposable e-cigs and Al Capone II's office is cheering. "Ka-ching! Guys, they gave us the whole market! Now we celebrate"
Do the VISIR muppets even exist as an organization 😂 They are as antiquated as the old Maoists in the RNS.