Want create site? Find Free WordPress Themes and plugins.

Many countries are attempting to classify electronic cigarettes as either tobacco products or medicine. As tobacco products, electronic cigarettes would likely be subject to taxes, sales restrictions, and smoking laws which probably don’t suit the product. As medicine, the small companies that have made electronic cigarettes the success that they are will likely be unable to endure the elaborate quality standards and research necessities to remain open.

Electronic cigarette and reduced harm tobacco alternatives advocates are pushing for a unique regulatory category for the products. Although this seems to be the ideal option, regulators seem too lazy to hash out a new architecture. So they want something they can call e-cigs that already exists and doesn’t require a lot of exceptions to apply that set of laws to.

Here’s a couple categories and products that electronic cigarettes might be better regulated as than medicine or tobacco.

Food and Beverage

Granted, individuals aren’t eating electronic cigarettes or even drinking the vaporized fluid (which would be unadvised). However, some experts compare the harm of electronic cigarette use to that of french fries or coffee. Nicotine itself isn’t even that foreign a substance as it is found in a number of plants and vegetables including potatoes and eggplant. The ingredients used to create e-liquid (the vaporized liquid used in e-cigs) often come from food and flavor sources rated on safety for human consumption.

All in all, electronic cigarette companies already generally meet the standards set forth by food and beverage legislation and their products are still proving to be around 1% as harmful as conventional cigarettes. This might still require some exceptions, but at least unlike with medicines regulation, small businesses could continue their work.

Recreational Marijuana Retail In Colorado

This sounds crazy, but the legalization of marijuana sales in places like Colorado and Washington is forcing the kind of radical new retail category definition and organization that the e-cig industry could use. Marijuana isn’t just discouraged at a national level — it’s down right illegal. This means that the regulatory architecture necessary for the product had to be nearly drawn up from scratch since it was legalized in November of last year (though medical marijuana was legalized back in 2000).

Essentially, you have a “new” product that has a pharmacological effect, causes no significant harm when used correctly, and has proven to have a number of positive effects on the users. Nicotine is the same way — though with a lower intoxication effect and higher rate of addiction. Perhaps the industry could take some cues.