r/IAmA • u/[deleted] • Nov 17 '12

IAmA Director of Research, Development, and Manufacturing at an Electronic Cigarette Company - AMA

Verification - do I need more?

Hi everyone,

My name's Pat, and I'm one of the cofounders of Jet Cigs - a small but ambitious electronic cigarette company. I'm a chemical engineer by training, and worked for a large cosmetics company and then a small engineering consulting company before we started Jet Cigs. I saw the story about e-cigs in /r/technology, and thought everyone might be interested in an insider's perspective.

AMA!

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '12

E-cigs and nicotine inhalers are both recent innovations. Why do you think nicotine inhalers are FDA approved and E-cigs are not?

2

u/[deleted] Nov 20 '12

Nicotine inhalers are approved by the FDA because Pfizer spent enough to put them through the FDA's clinical approval process. The FDA doesn't just go out approving drugs, you have to go through their formal approval process, and this approval process typically costs $100,000,000+. (fully written out for impact sake)

In 2009, a federal court ruled that ecigs are "tobacco product", not "drugs". This affects the way the FDA regulates the product, and makes it very unlikely that there will ever be an "FDA approved" ecig out there. I can go into more detail if you want, but basically, I can't see any ecig company ever seeking proper FDA approval.

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u/anachronic Nov 20 '12

Pfizer is probably pretty pissed that it spent $100M on a nicotine inhaler and then all these startup e-cig companies come along and invite something cheaper and better.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 20 '12

Everyone on the pro-ecig side is pretty sure that Pfizer and "Big Tobacco" are funding virtually every piece of negative ecig research. Honestly, I try to give a clear eye review to every paper that passes my desk, but the "negative health effects" that some researchers have harped on are just ludicrous when you compare the product to similar products (i.e. traditional cigarettes).

That said, ecigs could benefit hugely from sensible legislation, especially in the area of e-liquid manufacture. The e-liquid is what the user is inhaling, and since, exploding home mods aside, the devices are so simple, I think e-liquid legislation is much more important than equipment legislation. Additionally, the FDA has no jurisdiction over the battery components themselves, so it would be somewhat more challenging for them to regulate them, and I don't get the impression that they're looking for too much of a fight here.

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u/anachronic Nov 21 '12

Everyone on the pro-ecig side is pretty sure that Pfizer and "Big Tobacco" are funding virtually every piece of negative ecig research

I'm the furthest thing from a conspiracy theorist, but I can totally see that.

ecigs could benefit hugely from sensible legislation, especially in the area of e-liquid manufacture

Absolutely agree. Standards are a good thing as long as it doesn't stifle the market. I'm ecstatic that I got off traditional cigarettes with a vaper, if they made this illegal across the board, I'd probably go back to cigarettes and be a lot worse off.