I shop at a local vaporizer store on a weekly basis. I can remember visiting the store in the weeks before a regulatory hammer dropped on the entire industry. I was talking to one of the co-owners. I remember the look on his face. It was a sense of worriment mixed with exhaustion. This was his livelihood. He provided a service to the people of this community that was, generally, met with acceptance, and sometimes praise. I had seen many people come into that store with the goal of quitting cigarettes and moving on to a better lifestyle. Their business had been steadily growing to the point of opening up a second location within two years of the first. It was an example of free-market economics that would have brought a tear to Milton Friedman’s eye. An entrepreneur had begun to supplant a dangerous commodity, purely by offering a better product. Suddenly, it was about to be hit with a setback greater than any public apprehension.

Electronic cigarettes, or vaporizers, are alternatives to cigarettes. It typically involves a piece of cotton being attached to a strand of conductive wire, and then saturated with flavored nicotine juice. The wire then heats up, which vaporizes the liquid in the cotton. The vapor is then inhaled to get the same effect as as smoking a cigarette. There is no combustion in the process, and it does not produce any of the toxic tar associated with the negative effects of cigarettes.

The invention and growing use of electronic cigarettes has been surrounded by controversy. It has been called a gateway to smoking. It has been accused of normalizing smoking. It has even been said to be as bad as smoking itself. However, these fears seemed to be put to rest when the Royal College of Physicians published a 200-page report on the product in April of last year. The report said that vaporizers cannot be statistically shown to be a gateway to smoking, as nearly all of the users are former tobacco users. It said that e-cigarettes are a new and effective gateway out of smoking. It even said that the long-term health risks of e-cigarettes are unlikely to exceed 5% of the health risks associated with smoking. The same organization that denounced smoking in 1962 gave this industry a stamp of approval. The chair of the RCP’s Tobacco Advisory Group said “Smokers should be reassured that these products can help them quit all tobacco use forever.” It appeared that the ingenuity of the private citizen could accomplish what government could not. It could kill tobacco. It could kill it simply by offering a safer and more superior product.

Many people are still concerned about the presence of nicotine in this product. The cultural consensus says that nicotine is deadlier than arsenic and cyanide. However, in 2013 that was called into question by Professor Bernd Mayer. Seeing that there was a dramatic inconsistency between cases of survived nicotine poisoning and the accepted deadly dosage, he theorizes that the lethal dose could be over ten times the accepted level. Furthermore, Public Health England published a report in 2015 that documented case studies in which multiple people survived poisoning by up to 1,500 milligrams of nicotine. To put that in perspective, 18 mg/ml in 10 ml bottles is on the high end of nicotine content available in vaporizer products. So, a person could drink a little over eight bottles of e-liquid and survive. Even the most constant of e-cigarette users will tell anyone that vaporizing and inhaling 80 ml of e-liquid doesn’t happen in two weeks. A deadly dose needs to be almost instant, as relatively lower doses will result in vomiting as a cleansing mechanism. This same report concludes that e-cigarettes, when used responsibly, pose no threat of nicotine poisoning to users. After these findings, it seemed as if vaporizing was set to supplant smoking.

This was not to be. In August of last year, the FDA ruled that e-cigarettes are a tobacco product. Vaporizers were now subjected to the same regulations as cigarettes. Then the states followed. Pennsylvania recently passed an absurd 40% wholesale tax of all vaporizer products. The regulatory hammer is coming down.

To understand the issue with these new regulations, one must understand the industry. There are gas station style electronic cigarettes, but those are mostly produced by tobacco companies. The other side of the vaporizer industry is populated by collections of smaller companies, as well as local retailers. The premium businesses in the vaporizer market are mostly small operations, and are headed by small business owners and entrepreneurs. They offer a different type of product than the “cig-a-likes” offered in convenience stores. The products are typically far higher in both wholesale and retail price, and boast a wider variety of flavors than typical cigarettes. Whereas a tobacco company might have a small collection of flavors, a vaporizer juice company may have over fifty. In another facet, a device used for vaporizing can go anywhere from thirty dollars to well over a hundred. The idea is that the starting cost is somewhat high, but the subsequent costs after will be lower than constantly purchasing cigarettes.

Now there are three facets to the FDA ruling vaporizers as a tobacco product. It hurts the manufacturer, the retailer, and the consumer. The ruling means that the manufacturer will have to send an application to the FDA to get products approved. Each application can be expected to cost $1 million or more. This problem is worsened when combined with the variety of products offered by juice wholesalers. They have many different flavors, each requiring a new application, and offer them in varying levels of nicotine content, which will require a new application for each level. These levels are usually 0, 3, 6, 12, and 18 mg/ml. Sending an application for a single flavor of e-liquid, with a varying nicotine content, will cost the manufacturer in the area of $5 million. This presents a problem for the wholesaler, as they typically try to diversify their brand by offering many different flavors. Even then, there is no guarantee that the product will be approved, and the wait is notoriously lengthy. This, in turn, hurts the retailer. The price for these wholesale goods is going to jump dramatically. The small retail shops are going to be dealing with increased difficulty in getting their product. This will, finally, hurt the consumer. The increased price will make the change from cigarettes a bad economic decision. The admittedly high starting cost is going to skyrocket. In microeconomics, a current smoker will be less likely to make that change if the starting price is so costly and convoluted. In the end, nobody wins.

The tobacco industry has survived the immense burden placed on their product through sheer scope. They have become too large to be concerned with application costs and tax burdens. This is not so for a young vaporizing industry. They do not have the resources to shoulder the burden. Eventually, the vaporizers made by the tobacco companies will be the only ones left. The vibrant culture that has evolved out of this product will be dead. The businesses will fade away.

It is still a question of health, but the recent regulations have made this a question of freedom. Personal choice and self-determination are treasured hallmarks of American culture, yet somehow it is not defended when the choice is not palatable to some people. Through these regulations, the federal government has said that a personal choice is only acceptable through their dictation. The state has said that self-determination is not an inherent right, but a temporary privilege until the invasion of bureaucracy. This industry has risen up by the collective will of private citizens pursuing financial, medical, and personal gain. However, by the excesses of state control, it may fall. This industry that held so much medical, cultural, and economic potential may die. The state might believe they are protecting their citizens from themselves. In actuality, they are telling them to go back to smoking.