NJOY CEO Craig Weiss correspondence with Smokefree Pennsylvania's Bill Godshall on UK MHRA e-cigarette regulation

[rolygate]

Someone suggested that if medical authorization became law in the EU that the big players might park ecigs all together knowing that no one else could afford to get into the market. Why sell a product in opposition to your own product?

Medicalisation won't fly in Europe, every court everywhere has overturned it. On the other hand there will be huge pressure to make ecigs a tobacco product, and in the EU that will be very bad news; at least a 75% restriction on ecigs and maybe worse. No flavours = no e-liquid, more or less. Not an insurmountable problem as the black market will take over.

Where Rolly and I part company is timescale, he thinks 20 to 40 years I think less than 10. Ecigs are closer to phone or Pc's in terms of tech. We have seen mobile phones effectively replace the old landline and tablets (and coincidentally the mobile phone) replace the big box pc all within 10 years.

Yes, this is the main variable: how long before 25% of smokers have switched, then 50% etc. It hinges on the regulatory climate because a black market product won't advance anything like as fast as a free market one. The likelihood is that ecigs will be somewhere in the middle, depending on the location. We can't expect the current free market in the US and UK to continue much longer: the financial pressures to restrict ecigs are enormous.

 

[Petrodus]

We can't expect the current free market in the US and UK to continue much longer:
the financial pressures to restrict ecigs are enormous.

I can't prove it ...
However, I suggest the push-back will be the enormously popular movement
away from smoking to e-cigs. It's not just a healthier alternative thing
but also an enormously popular electronic "hobby" interest ...
"THEY" WILL Try to restrict ecigs ....
I suggest "They" ... Will Fail.

 

[Bill Godshall]

Rolly wrote:

I tend to look a long way into the future because it makes the immediate future much clearer: if you have a good idea what the situation will be in 20 or 30 years (and we do), then it makes it easier to work out what will happen next year.

Nobody has any idea of what the e-cigarette market's legal and regulatory framework might look like in 5 years in any country, let alone 20 or 30 years.

Rolly also wrote:

Medicalisation won't fly in Europe, every court everywhere has overturned it.

While I'd like to see that outcome, nobody can predict what the EU courts or national courts will do. We don't even know what the final EU TPD or national regulations might look like.

I suggest we all stick with reality.

Those who make grandiose predictions for the future are typically discredited when the future arrives.

 

[Orb Skewer]

Agree completely Bill, predictions/forecasts are arrived at using 'historical data', there is a good reason for that , no one can see into the future,,,,,well except Wizards and maybe fairground palm readers.

 

[aikanae1]

Let me throw another player into this debate that hasn't gotten much discussion; patents.

Can you imagine if the 510 connection had been patented and everyone who used it needed to buy rights? I suspect a number of companies are hoping to patent processes and construction that were developed by themselves or others, and with regulation, they will be able to enforce those rights - whereas right now, ecig development has largely been 'open source' and unenforceable. That slows development and larger corporations have an edge when it comes to getting patents. I don't know if the rest of the world mirrors the US, but I've heard estimates that up to 70% of court cases are involving patents (that figure also includes software - puff counting?).

It certainly does sound like there has been some backroom deals to bring njoy and others around to agree with MHRA, and I would expect that included being shown a 'fast-track' to market under regulations. I wouldn't be surprised if they were fooled and another wrench was in hand to spoiling thier 'fast-track' dreams since so much of this is about market regulation, and not about reguations for public health or safety. We shall see.

​

 

[rolygate]

True enough Bill - but I predict a huge black market if regulations are too strict, and there will be very little they can do about that.

Ecig sales will be either legal or illegal, and that doesn't change the fact they will still eventually overtake smoking. I'm only talking about the UK here as I don't think anyone knows multiple countries well enough to give a blanket verdict. Here, many smokers changed to RYO tobacco as a result of high taxes on cigarettes. In some places it was found that 100% of RYO tobacco is black market. That's 100%.

They spend tens of millions on stopping smuggling, which should be easy as this is a small country with no land borders - what could be easier to control? Unfortunately they have no chance. Also, the public will soon stop any support for bans on a smoking replacement that is 1,000 times safer. There will be 3 million vapers in the UK soon enough, and they will not be told by corrupt governments to lie down, shut up and die.

It doesn't matter what the regulatory framework is here, the outcome is a given: half of smokers or more will switch to ecigs. The variables (defined by the regulatory framework) are the timeframe, the product costs, and the ease of location of THR products by smokers who wish to switch. It doesn't change the outcome, and we know what that will be.

 

[Bill Godshall]

While e-cig sales/consumption in the US grew by about 500% from 2009 to 2011 during FDA's e-cig import ban, I'd be shocked if e-cigarette sales/consumption could overtake those of cigarettes (in the forseeable future) in countries that ban e-cigarette sales, especially if those countries aggressively enforce their e-cig bans.

The US government's War on Drugs (which is primarily a racist war on black and Hispanic drug users and dealers) and the US government's enforcement of alcohol prohibition from 1920-1933 clearly document that governments can go to extreme measures to enforce laws.

Hopefully, public pressure won't allow governments to enforce and prosecute their e-cig bans like the US has enforced and prosecuted its counterproductive War on Drugs and Alcohol Prohibition. But public pressure hasn't been able to stop the US government's War on Drugs (even after Obama said he'd end the War on Drugs, and even after 20 states have legalized pot).

 

[rolygate]

I started to respond... It became too long to post here. Then it became too long to make a blog post on my politics website. So now it's an article:

Why E-Cigarettes Cannot Be Stopped

Essentially, I believe that because we are at a technology changeover point, all the usual 'rules' are defunct: the result is a forgone conclusion. Perhaps even TC will not be able to hold it together for much longer, they appear to be cracking up from within:

See Vapers Network - Prof P Hajek, UKNSCC, 2013
https://www.facebook.com/groups/VapersNetwork/

UKNSCC - UK National Smoking Cessation Conference

 

[Orb Skewer]

True enough Bill - but I predict a huge black market if regulations are too strict, and there will be very little they can do about that.

Ecig sales will be either legal or illegal, and that doesn't change the fact they will still eventually overtake smoking. I'm only talking about the UK here as I don't think anyone knows multiple countries well enough to give a blanket verdict. Here, many smokers changed to RYO tobacco as a result of high taxes on cigarettes. In some places it was found that 100% of RYO tobacco is black market. That's 100%.

They spend tens of millions on stopping smuggling, which should be easy as this is a small country with no land borders - what could be easier to control? Unfortunately they have no chance. Also, the public will soon stop any support for bans on a smoking replacement that is 1,000 times safer. There will be 3 million vapers in the UK soon enough, and they will not be told by corrupt governments to lie down, shut up and die.

It doesn't matter what the regulatory framework is here, the outcome is a given: half of smokers or more will switch to ecigs. The variables (defined by the regulatory framework) are the timeframe, the product costs, and the ease of location of THR products by smokers who wish to switch. It doesn't change the outcome, and we know what that will be.

Wow, thats unbelievable, maybe in some places that number might even have been higher.

 

[rolygate]

Maybe they don't realise that prohibition by taxation works about as well as any other form of prohibition; maybe they don't care.

 

[byrdman041708]

NJOY sucks.