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Republicans and Democrats are going at it over the topic of electronic cigarettes which has turned out to be a surprisingly partisan topic. Front and center in the discussion is whether the FDA should move forward with its proposed regulation of the vaping and e-cig industry. Said regulation would require pre-market approval for any e-cig design that didn’t exist in 2007 along with hampering the marketing and advertising freedoms of the companies looking to sell the devices.

On one side, Democrats are arguing that e-cigs are just another tobacco industry ploy to ensnare impressionable youth into a lifetime of nicotine addiction. They go on to say that without proof that they are harmless, the government should regulate them with the assumption that they are harmful. Despite (quite literally) hundreds of studies showing e-cigs are nearly harmless, anti-smoking nuts (who tend to sit on the liberal side) refuse to accept any proof — nor will they accept the argument that a lower harm but effective alternative is better than no effective alternative for smokers.

On the other side, Republicans are commonly arguing that market freedom and consumer choice should take precedence over the potential harms of a device thus far proven to be undue harsh, bloated, and costly regulation. They, like much of the industry, aren’t saying there shouldn’t be any oversight, just that it should be appropriate to the risks and costs of the products. While tobacco cigarette smoking ultimately kills half of all smokers (and so is regulated harshly), electronic cigarettes appear to bring a net benefit to the nicotine use equation by helping smokers quit, reducing the harm nicotine consumption normally does, and even cutting down on secondhand harm (of which there appears to be none).

FDA regulators are standing mostly on the side of harsh regulation first and harsher regulation later. I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To the FDA, the booming e-cig industry represents a new way to grow and expand its powers. The very idea that an essentially health-related product exists in the market without their control is beyond unreasonable.

But the problem doesn’t come from the FDA’s simple desire to regulate the industry. By and large, consumers and business leaders within the industry would like to see appropriate regulation happen. For consumers, it means safer products. For companies, it means an even playing field and the expulsion of competition that cuts corners, rips off consumers, and takes short term profits at the expense of the long term health of the industry.

But ultimately, the FDA is an organization designed to stifle and slow innovation. They place extremely high standards of proof on what can come to market and place exhaustive and expensive hurdles between companies and their profits. While this often keeps unsafe products from coming to market and harming consumers, it also slows innovation to a near dead crawl. All this happens so the FDA can review new innovations at the pace and frequency of Galapagos tortoise sex.

One telling point was made to me some time ago by Boston University professor and vaping advocate Michael Siegel. He said that under current controls, it would have been impossible to ever get aspirin (a veritable wonder drug) to market. Even the smallest steps in pharmaceutical advancements often require someone to dump million or (more likely) billions on research. Ultimately this prevents any but the biggest of companies from opening new markets and improving on old, obsolete technologies. In essence, innovation is only for the big dogs when the FDA is involved.

But as much as electronic cigarettes are a health-impact product (even absent health claims, it’s safe to assume they do impact a user’s health), they are more just a simple bit of innovation brought to something that hasn’t hardly changed since 1865 with the invention of cigarettes. Since arriving mostly around 2009, electronic cigarettes have been upgraded and customized perpetually now ranging in size, shape, and quality as much as both consumer electronics and foods combined. This means they are, in every way, the exact opposite of what the FDA is equipped to deal with — a rapidly evolving electronic device which people demand access to right now.

Thus the FDA’s plan to halt all innovation in the industry since 2007 and make companies start applying for market approval. In this instance, though, they’re way too late. People have caught a glimpse of what a world with electronic cigarettes and personal vaporizers can do to the smoking epidemic. It doesn’t look like e-cigs will be slowing down. Perhaps the FDA will have to catch up.