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Various members of the international tobacco industry have been pushing a variety of agendas when it comes to electronic cigarettes. While some argue for regulation of the products as tobacco, others are buying into the e-cig world to get a piece of the pie. Others still are seeking to make e-cigs look dangerous, ineffective, or just plain silly.

The latest move in this ongoing conflict appears to have been made by British American Tobacco. The company is pressing Australian authorities not only to regulate the products as medicine, but also to allow the company itself to sell them.

British American Tobacco is the fifth largest tobacco company in the world with nearly $25 billion in annual revenue. Thus far, they haven’t appeared as active in the e-cig debate as others like R.J. Reynolds, Phillip Morris, and Lorillard. But it seems they’re just keeping things quiet.

In fact, British American’s efforts to take control of the electronic cigarette industry in Australia was only found out after a freedom of information act was filed by members of the media core there. What came back was a series of correspondences that indicated a representative of BAT had been pushing the Therapeutic Goods Administration (Australia’s medicines regulator) to take control of the e-cig industry and allow them to start selling the devices as medicine.

You can read more about the story right here.

The effort is occurring through a wholly owned subsidiary called Nicoventures — which was likely created with the sole purpose of benefiting from cessation therapy sales which BAT makes necessary with its own cigarettes. Now that information on this is public though, things are likely to get much harder on the company.