August 8th was Doomsday for the vaping industry….or so we thought. So if you’re new, or unaware of legislation in the vapor industry, the regulations were said to be in effect on August 8th. Now this doesn’t mean the proposed ruling was to be implemented, but Aug. 8th was the deadline any new products could be introduced into the market. Any products made after Aug. 8th were not to be sold or marketed unless proof of sales were made prior to that date. And I know what you’re thinking. There are tons of new products coming out all the time. Still to this day, new atomizers, mods, juices and juice companies, they’re all still coming out. What gives? Is this legal? Will these companies be shut down, or fined? Well to be completely frank, any products released after Aug. 8th is subject to being not only taken down, but companies fined, and further action can take place. But why isn’t this deterring new companies from forming or new products being released?
There’s a lot of confusion on this issue. So the FDA rulings state that new products cannot be released or market after Aug. 8th unless proof of prior sales can be made. So what many companies have done is “release” as many retainer products as they could. For example, Kanger has released 50 new products before Aug 8th, and made a few sales on those products, all behind closed doors. Obviously, these products were never in fact made, but the paper trail is there. So technically, when these “new” products are released, they’re really just “newly marketed” products that were made and sold before Aug. 8th. Another bet that most of these companies are making is that the FDA has no legitimate way of enforcing these rules any time soon. The FDA proposed that any manufactures before Aug 8th be registered by December 31st 2016. Because of the immense amount of registrations, the FDA has pushed that date back to June 30th, 2017, while keeping the original date for companies who started after Aug. 8th. This was speculated to be because of the immense amount of registrations, flooding the FDA offices. This also gave companies a reason to believe the FDA is completely in over their heads, and with a new regime change, FDA commissioner change, and new administration, the FDA would be far too busy to worry about enforcing any of these regulations any time soon. And from the looks of it, their bets seem to have been played well. This doubt casted upon the FDA has led way to many companies doing their best to make as much money and products before any enforcements are made. And with Vaping Advocates currently busy trying to get repeals and knocking legislation down, the unregulated nature of the industry has led to what we see now.
Now DIYorDIE can assure you that the DIY Eliquid Mixing scene will remain largely untouched. Even scares about nicotine have been silenced as we can see some companies having almost no trouble passing PMTA’s with their plain nicotine bases. So if you’re worried about the future of vaping, and you currently mix your own eliquids, you should have no fear. But for the rest of the industry, the future is still quite uncertain. It’s unknown whether any companies or products made after Aug. 8th will need to go through some type of screening to ensure the products met the deadlines. It’s unknown if the FDA regulations will remain the same, go through changes, or be completely repealed. And it’s unknown if any enforcement of the industry will come down the pike any time soon. Now I understand the frustration coming from many Advocate groups because of the constant barrage and blatant disregard for these regulations. It does give an heir of “unprofessionalism” in this industry, and can come back to bite itself in the ass. But I applaud the industry for throwing their middle fingers up to the government. We live in Capitalist America, and this type of capitalism is enjoyable to see. I say as long as you understand the consequences, and your goals are to fulfill a need and not exploit any consumers, than keep on keeping on. If every company were to immediately pause any manufacturing of new products till after PMTA’s were made, this industry would’ve been dead a long time ago. But the Fuck You nature of this industry has kept it chugging along.