FDA Denies 55,000 "Vape" Products by Denying Marketing Applications

[anotherbob]

I can't add anything that Misanthrope and Lawdog haven't offered already, but I will say that I am 35 years old, and will smash a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch any day of the week.

wait next you'll tell me adults eat candy too.

 

[karam]

I vaped before. Coil my own. Have enough parts to go back if I want. Making my own liquid is none issue. It's a fact that vape will help you quit nicotine dependence. It has been done by countless people in this country and others like UK.

Only thing that helped me to quit cigarettes and keep it off was vape. Of course, now I don't vape, I'm back to cigarette. Just too lazy to charge batteries, coil wires, buy juice.. A bit of leg work. Pipe definitely helps.

In before the lock for not being a vape forum - something I think is at the same time reasonable but also a bit restrictive.

Some point in Dec 2021 I restarted cigarettes in parallel to the pipe, I only kicked them off (again) the last month by digging up my vape gear. I used to vape hardcore and doing the whole shebang with the coils (including making fused Claptons on my own), mixing juice etc until burning out. I see a lot of vendors bowing out of the market though, in particular those of DIY flavours, and pods and disposables gaining huge market share (as I actually predicted they would, back in 2020 or so). I don't think the hobbyist vaping industry is looking great to be honest, sadly. Haven't seen any REAL innovation in any aspect since almost 2017.

On topic, I doubt the FDA decision will do anything for pipe smoking, good or bad. We are too few and fly totally under the radar.

None of the unsuccessful applicants were Big Tobacco. I wonder how the big boys will do when they step up to the plate.

Well, the first time they tried it was years ago and it was a total but total failure. They TOTALLY missed the mark by light years. They couldn't replicate that vaping at its infancy was basically people tinkering in their basements and attics trying to come up with something that worked, looked cool, and offered something new. It wasn't driven by money. I happen to have known a few modders and most of them lost money in the process, but are fondly remembered for the innovative designs they came up with. The golden age of vaping innovation was around 2012-2016
I remember chatting with other vaping people and we agreed that if Big Tobacco puts their money and power behind vaping they'd blow us all out the water with as much as a fart. They didn't seem to try again, and it may be because they also have the Iqos thing, which also gives them something to do with their tobacco crops, and this thing seems to be doing very well - at least in Europe where I am. Very aggressive marketing, and available everywhere. A Greek subsidiary of Philip Morris had pledged to convert all their production into Iqos by 2024 or something. I tried Iqos once, it tasted like a VERY bad cigarette.

Ooh, I actually know something about this!

That particular industry basically did it to themselves--it all started out with pretty basic, low-powered, and temperamental cigarette-like devices developed in China by Hon Lik in the early 2000s, and the two flavor choices you had back then were basically "stale cookie" or "toothpaste"...sorry, I mean "tobacco" and "menthol". The intentions were good; Hon Lik was after a way to quit smoking, and it wasn't really viewed as anything else.

Once it caught on in other countries as a means to quit smoking, a LOT of sketchy people jumped into the industry to make a quick buck alongside a number of honest purveyors who just wanted to see people kick their cigarette habit, and things went Wild West pretty fast.

There was also an active scene of people building their own devices by modifying flashlights (a basic vape was pretty much the same thing as a common flashlight in principle, except the "bulb filament" is wrapped around a wicking material soaked in e-liquid), and China caught onto that craze and started putting out mass produced, higher-power devices with onboard electronics to handle power adjustment. On top of which, there wasn't a whole lot of education, not much focus on user safety, and then shit like people's vapes exploding and starting fires became a thing.

Juul came along in the mid-2010s and introduced a small, more reliable, and sleek pod device that used what are called "nicotine salts" (protonated nicotine using either benzoic acid or salicylic acid to make higher nicotine strengths easier to inhale, much more closely mimicking the way a cigarette feels).

Their big mistake was deliberately marketing to a very young audience, and suddenly, there was an epidemic of teenagers and middle school children getting their hands on Juul devices, which really wound up a lot of parents and brought vaping to the attention of anti-tobacco and "think of the children" lobbying organizations. The first PMTA deadline was actually around August 2016, but the FDA kept kicking the can down the road.

Fast forward to a few years later...remember those sketchy people I mentioned earlier? Well, some of 'em figured out you could vape cannabinoids, and then a few of them decided to squeeze more profit out of their margins by cutting their product with vitamin E acetate, and still more of them had basically zero quality control and/or just didn't give a toss one way or the other. Throw in the wide prevalence of sketchy bootleg products that people in many places could only get from sketchy sources, and you have a recipe for a budding public health disaster.

Unfortunately, people started getting dramatically ill from using these sketchy products, and doctors dubbed that illness EVALI (E-cigarette or Vaping Use-Associated Lung Injury), and a whole bunch of people absolutely lost their shit. A number of groups used this as an opportunity to lump in nicotine vaping as well, and...so much FUD was spread around. This pushed a federal judge into tearing off his wig, demanding that the FDA pull its finger out, and splintering his gavel. That's when the FDA finally started the ball rolling on actually following through with regulating the vape industry via PMTAs.

You know all the stereotypes and attitudes (some demonstrated in this thread) against vaping? That's part of what I mean by the industry collectively doing this to itself. They lost the plot, steered the bus away from the well-intentioned road of helping people quit smoking, and careened it straight off the cliff of greed and shortsightedness, and that gray chicken has well and truly come home to roost.

This isn't a popular opinion in vaping circles, but the vaping industry is in dire need of regulation and a better focus on user safety, so even though the methods used to push things along were treacherous and unsavory and certainly favored Big Cigarette, the end result is going to be something more grown-up and responsible than the crazy Wild West stuff that was going on over the past decade.

This is a great analysis, and one I very much agree with. I like clouds too, but I really dislike people who flaunt the whole "I am not smoking" thing by blowing clouds big enough to change the weather forecast in places they plain should know better not to (like airports, hospitals, public transport, in the workplace - I have seen all).

 

[woodsroad]

I am sure Vaping has helped people quit the "Evil Weed"

I’m not.

 

[woodsroad]

Just look at +90% of all of Lane and Sutliff's tobaccos. Cherry, peach, tootie fruity, sugar vanilla, apricot, snozzle berries... who is keeping those companies in business? Is it the middle school pipe clubs?

My middle school pipe club was strictly high-end boutique blends, and homegrown.

 

[Pipeoff]

Why focus on vape when folks now can openly smoke the real potent stuff. Municipality’s see tax dollars for marketing and licensing growers yet my outside pipe smoke is changing the climate in the Empire State ?

 

[karam]

I’m not.

Based on? I know a lot of vapers, all ex-smokers including myself. I also know a load of smokers who "want to quit" yet never seem to be able to do it. When I advocate vaping they think it's some kind of hipster/bro thing, and continue smoking.

Vaping as I type this, next to me is a piece of Huber's Golden Virginia flake, drying for smoking later, no cigs anywhere

 

[woodsroad]

Based on? I know a lot of vapers, all ex-smokers including myself. I also know a load of smokers who "want to quit" yet never seem to be able to do it. When I advocate vaping they think it's some kind of hipster/bro thing, and continue smoking.

Vaping as I type this, next to me is a piece of Huber's Golden Virginia flake, drying for smoking later, no cigs anywhere

Most vapers are people who never smoked cigarettes. Anecdotal evidence not withstanding, when was the last time you hung out with 12-17 year olds behind Walmart?

 

[karam]

Most vapers are people who never smoked cigarettes. Anecdotal evidence not withstanding, when was the last time you hung out with 12-17 year olds behind Walmart?

I don't know actual numbers I admit. The people I know are in my age group which is 35-45 and from fora like this one, and totally on the hobby side of things. Never smokers who vape...well I a agree that's just stupid. In fact a pipe smoking friend of mine asked me about vaping (just to get in a few nicotine hits at work) and I discouraged him, saying vaping is and should be a vehicle to stop smoking cigarettes, and since he doesn't smoke them anyway why to start with that. He went ahead and got a pod regardless!

 

[woodsroad]

Wh

I don't know actual numbers I admit. The people I know are in my age group which is 35-45 and from fora like this one, and totally on the hobby side of things. Never smokers who vape...well I a agree that's just stupid. In fact a pipe smoking friend of mine asked me about vaping (just to get in a few nicotine hits at work) and I discouraged him, saying vaping is and should be a vehicle to stop smoking cigarettes, and since he doesn't smoke them anyway why to start with that. He went ahead and got a pod regardless!

While in general I have no opposition to vaping being legal and accessible to consenting adults, the fact that it makes it much more available to kids is highly problematic. Same with pot and it’s derivatives.

 

[TheIronMonkey]

@Misanthrope ’s post sums up my understanding of what happened with the sketchy use of Vitamin E to cut juice and nicotine products getting lumped in with tragedies that had nothing to do with them.

Susan has been vaping since 2013 (she switched from cigarettes) and mixes her own juice with a pretty low level of nicotine (3%).

Juul marketing towards younger audiences kind of messed things up for everybody.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I think this subject has been more than amply covered.

Lock is in.