Here's the whole story:
NY and CA legislators spent a good deal of time and taxpayer money in getting laws passed to tax the crap out of cigarettes (a pack of cigs is about $15 in NYC right now, by the way) and this incoming tobacco revenue is zillions and zillions of dollars. The legislators were counting on the money.
Now all of a sudden, there are little eCig manufacturers selling liquid nicotine that's delivered in puffs out of a Taiwanese-made battery powered device. There's no tax on that and the market cannot be controlled. It's going to ruin everything, just like how the Internet basically ruined the USPS mailing handwritten letters with their fancy 'electronic mail'.
They can't stop the manufacture of this liquid nicotine, since it's just basically a non-detergent soap solution made from gelatin. The tobacco content in the solution can be extracted from a single $5 pouch of leaf chewing tobacco and put in little bottles that would last a typical smoker about 6 months. You can do it yourself at home if the FDA tries to shut down the little outfits who sell the pre-made juice that goes inside 'eCigs'.
For the cost of a $40 eCig starter kit and another $20 in the nicotine goop that goes inside them, you can smoke for months and months instead of spending thousands on tobacco cigarettes that are heavily taxed.
So, there's nothing left for the FDA to try to control except for the delivery device, which is really nothing more than a 'AA' battery and a tiny coiled wire that gets hot when contact is made with the battery. A US Appeals Court just told the FDA to get lost when the FDA said that they could regulate 'AA' batteries.
This whole 'Ban the eCigarette!' fiasco is nothing more than liberal politicians losing tax revenue because smokers are switching away from the traditional tobacco cigarette that the liberals pretend that they hate.
Re your post 31:
Thanks for the great explanation.
If this catches on, not only does tax revenue go down: so does bulk cigarette consumption, and so does the value of the tobacco bond settlements. It will take time, but as you point out, there’s a lot of revenue at stake.
It’s hard to believe that some of the tobacco companies pioneered this once you realize how cheap the nicotine ingredient is.