For one group of people in the US, the election results offer more promise than disappointment: pro -vaping groups are hoping Trump can ease regulations that threaten the industry.
Vaping advocates have been scrambling for solutions after the FDA announced tough regulations for the industry this year. Many in the industry have said the regulations would threaten thousands of businesses, but legal efforts to change them have been ineffective. Now that Donald Trump has been elected, there is a renewed sense of optimism that positive change is on the way.
“From a public health perspective, we have a lot of reasons to be concerned about the outcome of Tuesday’s election,” said Dr. Michael Siegel, a tobacco researcher at Boston University who runs a blog examining the agency’s coverage of vaping. “However, with President Trump, and with Republican control of Congress, we have a tremendous opportunity to create a sensible regulatory strategy for e-cigarettes and related products.”
While we still don't know about the long-term effects of vaping, all recent studies have shown that they are much safer than cigarettes, and there is also evidence that they are an extremely effective smoking cessation tool.
Throughout the election, advocacy groups asked candidates to share their views on vaping regulation. Many of the FDA’s regulations were moderate and well-received by the industry, like the ban on sales to minors. But the FDA also required vaping businesses to go through extremely cumbersome procedures that required a lot of paperwork and cost thousands of dollars—something many vape manufacturers and stores said would put them out of business.
To counter the threat of stricter regulations, some pro-vaping politicians have advocated for a budget that would help amend FDA rules, reducing the regulatory hoops vape businesses have to jump through. Pro-vaping groups thought this policy was their only hope, according to Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association. But with Trump in office and the GOP taking control of Congress, including two pro-vaping candidates who were reelected, the industry suddenly had more room to maneuver.
“From what we’ve been told about what Trump is going to do with the Environmental Protection Agency, it looks like an anti-regulatory administration,” Conley said. “That gives us some hope.”
One option, Conley said, would be for Congress to vote to overturn the FDA regulations using congressional review powers. The other option would be to create a new law separate from tobacco laws that would specifically regulate vaping products.
But since his election, President Trump has not touched on the issue of vaping laws, so we can't predict what will happen. Conley said that with the two biggest political trump cards, Senator Ron Johnson and Representative Duncan Hunter, leading the way, he affirmed that Congress and President Trump will definitely address the issue soon.
This article was published on Motherboard by Kaleigh Rogers and translated by The Vape Club.
