The government has an addiction to cigarette taxes far more powerful than a smoker's addiction to tobacco. As any addict will tell you, they would do almost anything to get their "fix". The government is trying to recoup their losses of tax revenue from every level. A ferocious fight to unjustly tax vapor products as "tobacco" is underway. Why? Because these non-tobacco products are disrupting billions of dollars in cash flow, something they didn't expect.
Their plan of attack
Government tactics include enlisting "fellow addicts" to help, in the form of high profile organizations to keep their addiction alive. Organizations and associations, also funded in part by cigarette taxes, don't approve of vaping products to take people away from tobacco, despite evidence from Public Health England showing they are 95% safer than tobacco. They will only promote approved nicotine cessation "therapy" but don't tell you "results may vary", with success rates as low as 0-10%.
That leads to the next part of the addiction, drug companies. Those companies lobby and contribute to politicians, and want their product used to "help" smokers quit. Some health care and tobacco "control" professionals are helping with their addiction by claiming vaping products are bad, and "desperately" need regulation, meaning taxes.
How would that benefit health care? Drug companies give out money in the form of grants for research. Health care is also partially funded by cigarette taxes, and if people aren't smoking they may not need smoking related care. It seems the government and organization addiction to tobacco has outrun the number of smokers needed to sustain it.
The government position is counter-productive
This governmental addiction has created a counter-productive position for themselves. They want people to stop smoking. Now, smoking rates are lower than at any time in recent history. The government claims "raising taxes will help more people stop smoking" including taxing much safer vapor products because of nicotine content.
The same nicotine is found in less effective approved products.
The last step in the addiction circle is the deeming regulations proposed by the Food and Drug Administration. If vapor products are taxed like tobacco, the government addicts will have done what they can to feed their habit. Smokers, and potential future smokers, will pay the ultimate price.
Vapers have support
Vapers are setting their sites on an intervention called HB2058, introduced by Tom Cole (R-OK). If accepted, it will change the effective date of the deeming regulation. This decision to regulate vaping products, which may include accessories like batteries, is simply being decided by a date. It isn't about children or dangers, it is about money and all that it entails.
That date is imperative for tax revenue. Those who stopped smoking with vaping products want the government to own up and admit they have a problem.
The race against time and technology has caught up with one of the largest addiction schemes in history, tax on tobacco. The posturing of organizations and government will keep people smoking with manipulative information about vaping products. For those choosing a much less harmful non-tobacco alternative: they're trying to tax them (for their own good).
Like a true addict, when government screams "e-cigs are bad", what they're really saying is:
Please, Keep Smoking. We Need The Money.
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