FDA rules blow smoke on vape industry

Bridget Oelke has felt the burden of new federal rules before.

In 2012, a law barred her Fond du Lac business, Lakeside Smokes and Vapes, from operating a roll-your-own cigarette machine, spurring her to pivot and carry electronic cigarettes.

But with Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules now governing e-cigarettes, Oelke will likely need to adapt again to stay in business. These regulations, she said, may kill the budding e-cigarette industry with requirements too costly for the small shops and suppliers that have emerged in droves since 2007.

"This tells you that people who support these rules and say they support small business are really blowing smoke," Oelke said.

As companies lament federal rules guiding the electronic cigarette industry, health advocates applaud the federal regulations passed May 3 as a first step toward reining in this Wild West industry. Before FDA regulations, producers of liquid nicotine and the machines that turn the juice to vapor  sold their products without approval from any local, state or federal agency.

The FDA regulations passed would:

    Mandate manufacturers disclose ingredients on packaging and in advertisements
    Ban shops from selling to minors
    Stop shops from offering free samples to customers

The FDA also would require any vape product developed after 2007 to gain approval from the agency before it could be sold, a requirement that would likely be too costly for most small companies, said Kristin Noll-Marsh, director and vice president of Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association (CASAA), an e-cigarette advocacy group.

Noll-Marsh said her group is pushing rules that would grandfather-in much of the vape products on the market, lowering the burden on existing businesses. CASAA knew these rules were coming, she said, but it didn't expect them to be so stringent.

Because shops and other sellers are making hardware and vape juice at home, e-cigarette sellers may move their businesses from storefronts to alleyways, Noll-Marsh said.

"What's better?" she said. "Create light-touch regulations that keep people in business, or create a black market without any regulation?"
A growing concern in schools

    "People don't see (vaping) as being as harmful as it probably is" — Jamie Constantine, Oshkosh West High School junior

While vaping supporters despair over the new regulations, public health advocates are cheering them as a first step to squelching smoking.

Sandy Bernier, Fond du Lac County Tobacco Control program coordinator, said that, though these rules will provide more information on what e-cigarette juice contains, the government’s ruling doesn’t do enough to govern marketing efforts and the flavored juice that appeals to kids.

“Certainly it’s a good win for public health that they’re going to start to regulate these e-cigarettes,” Bernier said. “Whatever the product, consumers should know how it’s being stored, how it’s being handled.”
In a conference room at the Winnebago County Health Department, a handful of middle and high schoolers, members of the anti-tobacco group FACT, brainstormed how to convince classmates to abandon vaping.

These students, ranging in age from 14 to 18, say vaping has overtaken smoking in Oshkosh schools. Students see e-cigarettes as a safer alternative to smoking and flock to its subculture, which thrives on social media sites Instagram, Snapchat and others, said Jamie Constantine, a junior at Oshkosh West High School.

“People don’t see (vaping) as being as harmful as it probably is,” Constantine said Wednesday, sitting at a conference table with her FACT members.

It’s tougher for these students to urge their peers not to vape because there isn’t enough data that shows vaping can cause long-term harm, Constantine said. So their argument against vaping is: fear the unknown. A pitch against tobacco has no shortage of squirm-worthy stats and stories.

Tougher still for FACT is painting vaping as uncool to students, said Alexandra Molinski, a senior at Oshkosh North High School. Students now have been told cigarettes are bad since they were knee-high. But because vaping is so new, students don’t shape their thoughts on e-cigarettes with the same scorn.

"They just don't see it as a problem yet," Molinski said. "It's hard to say why it's bad for you because no one knows what's in it."

hops stuck in limbo

    “How can you plan for something when you just don’t know what’s going to happen?” — Frank Heisler, president, It's Vapor

At Oshkosh’s A - Z Tobacco & Vape Shop, e-cigarettes have grown to account for half the shop’s business. The store started as a price-focused tobacco shop, but switched to vapor as the industry grew.

A-Z Tobacco & Vape Manager Josh Boughton said losing vaping altogether would be tough for the shop but wouldn’t bankrupt it. Though there’s uncertainty now, Boughton said he’s confident his store will be able to ride out these FDA regulations.

Already, it has been tough to stock hardware that converts juice to vapor, as dealers wait on what these rules will mean, said Frank Heisler, president of It’s Vapor, with locations in Oshkosh, Menomonie Falls and Berlin that employ 15 workers total.

Heisler waves a hand over a nearly empty display case that once held vaporizers for sale inside Its Vapor. Vape equipment has been harder to get ahead of the FDA ruling: companies don’t want to invest too heavily in hardware, then get caught with a stock of gear they can’t sell. In the meantime, Heisler can’t stock as many vaporizers as he’d like.

His business will largely rest on how these companies that make juice and vape hardware adapt to the new rules.

For now, there's little to do but wait.

“How can you plan for something when you just don’t know what’s going to happen?” Heisler said.

Reach Nate Beck at 920-858-9657 or nbeck@gannett.com; on Twitter: @NateBeck9

Resource: http://www.thenorthwestern.com/story/news/2016/05/12/fda-rules-blow-smoke-vape-industry/84147042/