So basically the only people not affected by this is people like Phillip Morris and their peers right?
Wonder if this is the result of some good old fashioned somehow not illegal lobbying?
Pretty much. You see, this new ruling requires that all of what they now consider "tobacco products" (which now includes ecig/vaporizer juice) that didn't exist prior to 2007 must submit an application to the feds for approval of their product. On the true tobacco side, this permit process costs approximately $250,000. On the ecig side, it will be approximately $1 million. And that's PER PRODUCT on both sides.
So, for example, I currently smoke OHM which I'm fairly certain did not exist prior to 2007, and I believe they offer 8 different flavors total. So they are going to need to cough up $2 million to continue production and sale of their product. They are pretty popular so they MIGHT be able to pull this off, but they also have to take into consideration that the FDA/TTB may very well classify their product as cigarette tobacco, not "pipe tobacco" as it's currently labeled. That would mean the tax rate on their product would explode which will naturally result in less sales. This is something that all small-time tobacco producers are going to have to consider.
The ecig guys are totally f*cked. A lot of these vape shops mix their own juices. Say they conservatively offer 40 different flavors with 3 different nicotine levels. They would need to come up with $120 MILLION. No Main St vape shop is going to be able to do this, obviously. I have sincere doubts that even the biggest producers of ecig/vape juice will be able to afford this. The market is just too young.
The only ones that will be able to afford this is "Big Tobacco". RJ Reynolds already controls 35% of the ecig market. How much do you think that will grow when now all of their "peon" competition has to jump through million dollar hoops? Vaping isn't going away, it's simply going into the hands of a select few... and will likely become nearly as expensive as traditional smoking. I have absolutely ZERO doubt that BT lobbyists were strongly behind this.