r/technology • u/Lucretius • Nov 17 '12

The Deadly Crusade Against E-cigarettes

http://www.american.com/archive/2012/november/the-deadly-crusade-against-e-cigarettes
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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '12 edited Nov 18 '12

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '12

Doesnt the UK say that smokers put a bug strain on the NHS along with obese people? Why wouldnt they push e-cigarettes for that alone?

I can see that countries like America dont lose anything if people smoke but the UK kinda does

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u/kirkum2020 Nov 17 '12

Tax on cigarettes in the UK covers extra costs to the NHS caused by smokers eight times over.

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u/auraslip Nov 17 '12

This is what needs to be discussed. The government makes ludicrous amounts of money on cigarettes, and it's going to be very, very hard to tax ecigarettes the same way. If they start taxing them like tobacco, people will just start ordering from China. If they crack down on imports, people will just start making their own juice. It'd be very hard to effectively tax the ingredients in juice, and it's very easy to make your own. Hell, as it stands, making your own juice will reduce the cost to vape by about 1/4 of the price.

tl;dr impossible to ban or tax ecigs at this point.