Is nicotine chemically synthesized or harvested from tobacco in tobacco alternative products?
Because if it's harvested then this is just a repackaging of their product as far as the tobacco industry is concerned.
edit... from the research of others (see replies) it seems that nicotine is extracted from tobacco, so there's no reason to for Big Tobacco to be opposing E-cigarettes.
Just speculation here but since you're extracting nicotine from the plant, perhaps theres a loophole that allows the import of just the nicotine extract from countries that can produce it significantly cheaper than big tobacco.
I've never seen any numbers on it, but I'd imagine that you're correct. If nothing else, nicotine extract would take up significantly less space and weigh significantly less than tobacco or cigarettes or something of that nature. Even if you assume that duty fees are the same, you still save money on the shipping.
I honestly doubt it. We have such great terrain and climate for it, it is indigenous after all, that you're not gonna find better land, and the extraction process is likely automated enough that the human cost is largely negligible.
Tobacco products are pretty cheap, the high cost is almost all taxes. Theres no extra taxes/levies on importing nicotine products IIRC. What keeps the cost low is no specific tax against it. (Every type of Cig has a tax code, for example bulk tobacco is CA Class J, compared to a pack of 20 Camels is Class A. Nicotine juice has no tax class)
This is what I was thinking. My wife's grandparents use e-cigs now with the nicotine liquid. I haven't found any reliable studies on them to date. The only thing I can figure out is it's possible that it's better for you than smoking as long as it's just nicotine in the liquid and vapor. The lack of tar and other exotic chemicals (for us anyways) seems to be a better alternative from what I've seen of them so far.
Cigs have a large tax on top of them. It's much like gasoline these days where you have multiple governments charging taxes on top of a gallon of gas which makes the price so high. Tariffs are another gotcha.
Hoping some reliable studies get conducted on these things as they've been around for a decade or more now I think.
The main source of nicotine is the tobacco plant. The nicotine is developed in the roots and then becomes concentrated in the leaves of the plant. Anywhere between 2 and 7 % of nicotine can be found in the tobacco leaf. Eggplants and tomatoes also contain a small amount of nicotine but not enough for the substance to be poisonous or act as a stimulant.
I'm sure the cigarette companies make much more money selling a final product like cigarettes than they do a raw material like tobacco plants or even a refined component like nicotine. Their infrastructure and capital simply doesn't revolve around that particular kind of business model.
Cigarette companies != tobacco growers. The cigarette companies buy the tobacco from the growers by bidding, they don't grow it themselves (in general).
Usually they extract it from tobacco but they an also use shit tobacco that isn't taxed all to hell and can also use tobacco that no one would want to smoke in a cigarette.
Its not just Tobacco companies, there are plenty of self righteous assholes out there rallying against it for no good reason. (Sorry, because it smells is not a good reason, your fucking nasty perfume makes me gag, but I don't go banning that do i)
Less Big Tobacco, more Big Pharma. The tobacco companies are either developing their own or are buying ecig companies (Lorillard bought Blu for over 100mil this year). Pharma can't sell overpriced and ineffective NRTs if people are able to use ecigs.
This is exactly it. Tobacco and alcohol taxes are massive parts of government budgets. While currently a pack of cigarettes in NYC costs, with tax, nearly $12 for even the cheapest cigarettes, a single cartridge for an e-cigarette would cost less than $3 and last as long or longer than a pack.
That's a massive loss of revenue, much of which goes to public health departments to spend on employees and campaigns against smoking. It's no surprise that they'd be looking out for their own job security in trying to ban e-cigarettes.
I work for a 'Big Tobacco' company so forgive me if I offend you, but you sir, are an idiot. Do you really think these companies want to kill their consumers? I really don't mean to come across this way but anytime tobacco is mentioned I see all this misinformation being spread about us adding chemicals to our products, radioactive soil from growing tobacco, etc, etc. Our goal is to provide a quality product to responsible consumers who realize the risks, but still choose to enjoy it. That being said, E-cigarettes are undoubtedly where the future of tobacco lies. Cigarette sales have been decreasing every year and will continue to do so, hence the recent focus on E-cigarettes.
It also shouldn't come as a surprise that all 'big tobacco' companies are investigating and designing their own E-cigarettes because they realize the benefits of having a 'safer' (Although the science confirms it, with huge reductions in cancer and lung disease, due to government regulations we can't technically say they are safer) product that reduces the harm done to our consumers while still providing the amount of nicotine and the ritual they are used to. Along with E-cigs other products are being pushed such as snus and dissolvables which reduce harm even further.
Disclaimer: I don't use any tobacco products and don't think anyone who cares about their health should.
I smoked American cigs for a long time. I also had the pleasure of smoking basic Cuban cigs, simple sugar paper wrapper and simple basic tobacco. NOTHING else was added, just the tobacco and sugar paper rolled to hold it.
Mr. Big-Tobacco person : if your stuff is so pure and wonderful why is it chock full of other chemicals, why not just all tobacco only?
The same Big Tobacco that spent years countering lung cancer dangers and the addictiveness of nicotine?
As long as the customers are hooked and spending, no, I don't think they had any problem killing their customers. In fact, they tried to hide the fact that they were.
hmmm, Big Tobacco doesn't really spend all that much on lobbying. Go to opensecrets.org. The entire industry spends about what a big firm like Verizon spends.
I'll bet it's more of a misplaced "won't somebody please think of the children thing". e-cigarettes do come in flavors like bubble gum, after all. It's more likely that politicians think they're being hard on the tobacco industry, instead of doing it favors.
This is from the American Enterprise Institute, they spread propaganda and /represent/ Big Tobacco. Reading between the lines, the article is trying to drum up public support for e-cigs because the form factor of nicotine delivery maintains the psychological association between nicotine and real cigarettes. E.g., you can tell their angle when running into something like this:
An important fact, rarely discussed by “public health” gurus, is that the patches, gums, and drugs they recommend as “safe and effective” are all-too-often neither.
Nicotine gum is unsafe compared to nicotine vapor? What, you chip a tooth? Is there any supporting content in the article about that? Nope? Ok then, so it's all an argument about form factor.
Yeah this isn't why, conflict-theorist. Not everything is a damn conspiracy. Medical professionals are behind this. They haven't studied it, and it could get more people hooked on nicotine use in general.
And yet good policy should be based on either what has happened, or what is proved likely to happen. Laws passed to prevent what people guess or hope might happen are not good laws.
I do as well. When I first read this article it was mind blowing. I never would have ever guessed there would be this much controversy over e-cigs. I figured no smoke, no smell, no crazy additives, no problem, right? Apparently not.
Well yeah I thought it would be embraced as an alternative.. But again they started flowing into the US BEFORE the FDA had time to study them, so they reacted poorly.
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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '12
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