I am no blogger.
More's the pity,because honestly this could use a rewrite by someone with good grammar skills and an understanding of how all of this connects to each other.
The state AG'S are a force to be reckoned with.
They run a sort of regulatory agency all of their own with no constitutional restrictions or oversight.
I think to best explain it you would need to look at an article written by Daniel Fisher in 2008.
The name of the article is The House Tobacco Built
(I'll place a small portion of the text here but it is worth a read to try and grasp exactly what I think is coming.)
Beside funding antismoking campaigns, the loot from the tobacco companies has helped turn this once sleepy professional association into a kind of super regulatory body, hunting for antitrust and consumer-fraud violations. It doesn’t sue anybody, instead working behind the scenes to coordinate the efforts of state attorneys general and provide legal advice.
“This is a de facto regulatory agency, they just don’t call it that,” says Michael S. Greve of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “It corresponds to nothing we know about the constitutional landscape.”
So from that piece we see some odd things,the MSA money and what is done with it,where it goes and what they do with the things they have uncovered.
But it gets weirder and it once again ties into the State AG's and yet another Fischer piece,this one more recent but still worth careful reading.
Holy End Run! Attorneys General Urge Action As E-Cigarettes Gain Market Share
There could be trouble ahead, however. Payments under the MSA fell from $7.6 billion in 2009 to $6.2 billion last year, and Fitch Ratings warned earlier this month that e-cigs could threaten bonds backed by MSA payments.
All of which explains the concern over at NAAG, which some jokingly dub the National Association of Aspiring Governors. In their letter to the FDA, and by extension, Congress, the AGs warn that youth surveys show e-cig use doubled last year.
Consumers are led to believe that e-cigarettes are a safe alternative to cigarettes, despite the fact that they are addictive, and there is no regulatory oversight ensuring the safety of the ingredients in e-cigarettes.
All good reasons to fold the newfangled products under the oversight of the feds, which the FDA is expected to do by the end of next month. But there’s not much the AGs can do to plug the loophole that is draining revenue from their 1998 settlement agreement. Having bet on the continued success of conventional cancer sticks, they were caught sleeping when the market went digital.
(I have to stress the above portion of text are not my words.)
We know the tobacco bond market is in the toilet and circling the drain ever so quickly.
Some blame e cigarettes,they might be correct in that assumption,
Again from Forbes
Tobacco Bonds Feel Heat From E-Cigarettes
Meanwhile, lawmakers in states including New Jersey and Minnesota are taking measures to tax electronic cigarettes like traditional tobacco products, which could reduce growth.
"Something that might slow this down is if more legislation gets implemented to tax or ban e-cigarettes, which would be beneficial to the sale of combustible cigarettes," said BlackRock's Mr. Milway.
So here we can sense a sort of threat both in the language used and in the implications about regulation and what the bond market would like to see,a growth in traditional tobacco and a steady death of e cigarettes.
And from a recent New York Times piece
Officials Focus on E-Cigarette Ads Aimed at Youths
State attorneys general must investigate, and consider taking legal action against, e-cigarette companies that appear to be using some of the same advertising tactics that once drew young adults into smoking, a Kentucky deputy attorney general told his law enforcement colleagues gathered here for a retreat to discuss emerging legal issues in states nationwide.
The gathering of nearly two dozen attorneys general, and senior members of their staffs, came on the 20th anniversary of the initiation of the historic lawsuit that states filed against tobacco companies — resulting ultimately in an approximately $10 billion annual payment, which is still being made, and an agreement to restrict advertising everywhere from outdoor billboards to sports events, to try to curtail the appeal of tobacco to youths
Sean Riley, the chief deputy attorney general of Kentucky, told his law enforcement colleagues that Kentucky had left behind its status as the state with the highest percentage of youth smokers. But he said he was concerned that e-cigarette advertising could reverse that progress.
I find it fishy and suspicions are raised when every single one of these mentions one group or another willing to step on and stomp to death a new industry for it's own gain.
I am starting to assume from a careful look that the next few years are going to be an uphill battle for vapers as they start to be attacked on all sides,from the WHO,from their own governments both state and local and of course from the propaganda pieces like this that we're starting to see appearing in newspapers everywhere.
And if you never thought it or ever dared to believe it before by now you can begin to see why it rings so true what Dick Puddlecote has always said.
It's Never Been About Health
(And because it's tradition a song that feels fitting.
They are headed our way and we know it.
Ya sorry about the profanity, But it was more included because of the chorus.)
Ya sorry about the profanity, But it was more included because of the chorus.)
