In the United States, legislators are cracking down on vaping products and concerned vapers have started stockpiling e-liquid and other vaping supplies as a result.
While some states and cities have already moved to ban vaping products, there is perhaps a bigger concern for U.S. vapers and that is the prospect of a federal ban on vaping products. The Trump administration has made clear its plan to ban most flavored e-liquids and according to health and human services secretary Alex Azar, the FDA will be outlining a plan to remove flavored e-cigarette products from the market in the near future.
The looming federal ban on flavored vaping products will, according to Mr. Azar, exclude tobacco flavored e-liquids. For vapers who prefer e-liquid flavors other than tobacco, the future of vaping in the U.S. appears grim. However, there is pushback from vape shops, vapers, and the vapor industry.
In New York, an appeals court has granted a temporary restraining order against the state and its officials, temporarily preventing the state and its officials from enforcing the emergency ban on flavored e-liquids that was scheduled to begin earlier this month. The ruling provides vapers in the state with a temporary reprieve, marking a win for the vaping industry as well as the vaping community, although it may only turn out to be temporary.
Like New York’s ban on flavored vaping products, the federal government’s plan to ban flavored e-liquids is also expected to be met with pushback.
The Vapor Technology Association, the trade group that filed the lawsuit against New York’s emergency ban on flavored e-liquids that was granted a temporary restraining order against the state and its officials, released a statement in which it called on President Trump to not “follow the lead of San Francisco, Mike Bloomberg and the far left anti-business extremists” while noting that over “two million Americans have died from cigarette smoking-related illnesses over the last five years.”
According to the CDC, cigarette smoking is responsible for over 480,000 deaths a year in the United States.
Traveling across the Atlantic, it’s readily apparent that vapers in the United Kingdom currently enjoy a much more vape-friendly atmosphere. This reality comes as a result of the U.K. government’s current position on vaping, which is that vaping e-cigarettes is likely much less harmful than smoking cigarettes. As a result, vapers in the U.K. enjoy easy access to vaping products at local shops as well as on the internet where there is currently no shortage of online vape shops for vapers to choose from.
Vaping’s rise in popularity in the United Kingdom, emboldened in part by the findings of Public Health England’s e-cigarette evidence review and the U.K. government’s decision to pursue a science-based policy on vaping, has led to increased competition among vape companies that operate within the U.K. market. This, in turn, has worked to drive down costs for U.K. consumers as retail prices for vaping products such as e-liquid have plummeted in recent years. So while U.S. vapers are faced with the prospect of losing access to their cherished e-liquid flavors, U.K. vapers continue to enjoy access to a wide variety of e-liquid flavors with no end in sight.
In the U.S., some vape shop owners have made clear that they will go out of business if vaping bans go into effect in the areas in which they operate. For some U.S. vape companies, such as e-liquid manufacturers that distribute their products overseas, the repercussions may not be quite as severe, but there is still a chance that the bans will have a negative impact on their revenue. As a result, there will almost certainly be a loss of jobs in the U.S. vaping industry.
