FDA to Expand Tobacco Regulations to E-cigs

Today, the government’s premier nanny agency, the Food and Drug Administration, announced it will regulate all tobacco products including cigars, hookah and pipe tobacco as well as a non-tobacco product, the e-cigarette. E-cigs are not tobacco. They have no tobacco in them whatsoever, but rather are filled with a “juice” that may or may not have nicotine in it.

Naturally the despotic agency is taking a victory lap.

“This action is a milestone in consumer protection — going forward, the FDA will be able to review new tobacco products not yet on the market, help prevent misleading claims by tobacco product manufacturers, evaluate the ingredients of tobacco products and how they are made, and communicate the potential risks of tobacco products,” the FDA said in announcing the changes.

The new rules will “forbid” the sales of e-cigarettes to children (already illegal at the state level) and allow the FDA to regulate the contents of the non-tobacco product.

The e-cigarette business is a $3.5 billion industry that was functioning perfectly fine without the jackboot of government regulation suffocating it. The new regulations are guaranteed to force small businesses to shut down and leave countless Americans without jobs.

Many of the small vape shops, device manufacturers and liquid nicotine producers won’t be able to afford the FDA’s approval process, which could cost anywhere from $2 million to $10 million per item, according to the regulatory consulting company SciLucent LLC.

Once all the small businesses go bust, the cost of e-cigs will go up –you know that supply and demand thing– and those who use e-cigs to avoid tobacco will be paying more money for their vaping accessories. How is that protecting the consumer, by making it infinitely more expensive to kick the tobacco habit? Is that a “milestone in consumer protection”?

“This is going to be a grim day in the history of tobacco-harm reduction,” said Greg Conley,  president of the American Vaping Association, an industry-funded advocacy group. “It will be a day where thousands of small businesses will be contemplating whether they will continue to stay in business and employ people.”

Is there a hell hot enough for these government bureaucrats and their compulsive need to regulate every aspect of your life regardless of the consequences to society?