New US Nicotine Tax

[ZenAnarchi]

Well, I don’t want to be a doomsayer, but I can’t understand how vaping will survive in the States if this passes Congress. This will ostensibly make vaping more expensive than smoking. It is as deadly as it is idiotic

https://youtube.com/shorts/DgW-qwzNo5I?feature=shared

 

[LordOdin]

There is no way anyone will or can afford to vape in the US if this bill goes through. If anything like this happened over here i would just return to smoking. The Tobacco Magnets will be rubbing their hands together whilst the Nicotine companies book their holidays etc. It will be more Profitable for Drug Dealers to sell Nicotine.

 

[Netvaper]

US vapers may need to take to the streets, seems to be the only way these days as politicians never bother with what voters think.

 

[Toby iVapour]

Well, I don’t want to be a doomsayer, but I can’t understand how vaping will survive in the States if this passes Congress. This will ostensibly make vaping more expensive than smoking. It is as deadly as it is idiotic

I don't understand how it will make it significantly worse, as nearly all vape products in the US are being pushed underground already -
https://vaping360.com/vape-news/126...rt-to-stop-sales-of-popular-disposable-vapes/

Since then [the Tobacco Control Act], the FDA has used its authority to shut out independent vaping manufacturers. The agency has not authorized a single product in a flavor other than tobacco, or any bottled e-liquid. All six of the vaping devices so far authorized by the FDA are made by Altria (NJOY), Reynolds (Vuse), or Japan Tobacco (Logic).

Now would a tax be imposed on the the grey market?
(which most vape products are sold in the US these days)

For example, the lawsuit [in California - SB 793, a bill that will ban the sales of flavored vaping products], along with FDA enforcement and pressure from tobacco control groups, could eventually push the disposable vape sector fully underground, transforming the current gray market (products sold in legal retail stores; taxes paid) to an illegal, unreported black market. If that happens, nicotine vaping products would be sold by individuals and criminal groups through online and face-to-face transactions, with no product oversight or age restrictions.

And online sales have now been affected throughout the US for the last couple of years since Oct 2021 -

The law does not ban online sales of flavored vaping products, although some California cities and counties may ban online sales themselves. There is also a federal law that prohibits most vape product shipping though the U.S. Mail, and UPS and Fedex also prohibit vape deliveries.

The Tobacco Magnets will be rubbing their hands together...

NJOY/Altria Asks Court to Stop Sales
https://vaping360.com/vape-news/126...rt-to-stop-sales-of-popular-disposable-vapes/

Altria vape subsidiary NJOY today filed a federal lawsuit against 34 manufacturers, distributors and retailers of disposable vapes, which NJOY says are sold unlawfully in California and elsewhere.

NJOY, once a scrappy independent company that successfully sued the FDA, is now a subsidiary of tobacco company Altria Group, manufacturer of top-selling Marlboro cigarettes. NJOY manufactures two of the six currently sold FDA-authorized vaping devices. Altria bought NJOY earlier this year for $2.75 billion, soon after dumping its 35 percent share in Juul Labs.

Altria and R.J. Reynolds want to eliminate the competition
Today’s lawsuit comes just days after Vuse manufacturer R.J. Reynolds filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC) charging a nearly identical group of companies with illegally importing unauthorized disposable vapes. It is difficult to believe that the two complementary legal attacks on disposables, happening less than a week apart, were not coordinated.

It was lawyers from Altria (then called Philip Morris) that collaborated with Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids President Matthew Myers and members of Congress to write the Tobacco Control Act, which became law in 2009. Altria used the opportunity to design a regulatory system that favored cigarettes and wealthy corporations, and would later be used to discourage and harass manufacturers of low-risk nicotine products that might compete with Altria and R.J. Reynolds, the dominant American tobacco companies.

For a timeline on the Deeming Rule: A Brief History of FDA Vaping Regulations -
https://vaping360.com/learn/fda-deeming-regulations-timeline/

Whether the FDA admits its error in attempting to prohibit and restrict products that could save millions of lives, or instead continues to push back against tobacco harm reduction, the vaping genie is out of the bottle. It will be impossible to put it back. To save its own credibility and authority, the FDA will at some point in the near future have to acknowledge vaping as a low-risk alternative to smoking, or wind up presiding over an ineffective prohibition and a robust black market.

So in this rather convoluted post I have done, the US has got almost everything going against them to legally buy vape products; whether it is at a federal level (FDA), state level (e.g. California), vape mail ban, Big Tobacco lawsuits, or nicotine tax...

 

[ZenAnarchi]

Straw meet camel’s back Hence my doomsaying