As much as we love all the perks that come with paying taxes (i.e. your public healthcare system, public transport, the local maintenance down your road, lovely 400ks and other sweet subsidies as you hit that elderly age), the thought of being heavily regulated in all angles and now that it’s hitting harder and closer to home, those in West Virginia have our sympathies. Yes, the vaping world too has been hit but with a higher rate in taxes.
Starting this month of July 2016, all types of e-liquids which are used for the purpose of vaping e-cigarettes shall be subject to a higher tax implied throughout the West Virginia state. What this means for consumers, for every e-juice you purchase, you’ll be paying a higher cost of 7.5 cents for every ml. Sucks, doesn’t it?
As reasoned by Senator Ron Stollings of West Virginia, the increased taxes inflicted upon vaping products is seen as an evasion of nicotine addiction in the younger generation. With the appeal and popularity of vaping hitting the 21st century, the fear is that more and more young ones will pick up vaping when compared to not vaping or smoking at all. Think about it, with flavors like cotton candy and other yummy variations, it surely does scream “buy me” to younger kids. We can see the reasoning behind it but in all argument, vaping still owns smoking conventional tobacco cigarettes by far in terms of health and pretty much every other factor (smell, taste, social consciousness, so on so forth).
According to Stollings, “up to 50% of children are vaping and whether they know it or not, they’re going to be addicted to nicotine”. He further stated that the vaping industry has been under desperate attempts to hide the truth about how young kids have started vaping (aiming at those in the teenage years) and have been advocating the positive benefits of vaping in the alternative.
“The vape shops don’t want to tell you about that, what they want to tell you about is how people can quit smoking by starting to vape and it might be a little better for them to have just nicotine instead of tar and all that other stuff that comes with cigarettes,” Stollings mentioned, “but they don’t tell you the huge increase in the number of kids in grade school, middle school and high school using vape products.”
To add to the debate, Chad Howell, the business owner of Danville’s Applachian Fog stated that the allegations on how e-cigarette vaping is a “gateway drug” to the harsher and more damaging drugs is an absolute myth which has been disproved by solid and reliable research time and time again. For example, a recent case study which was executed by the United Kingdom Center for Substance Use Research has determined that although there has been an increased number of the younger generation being more inclined to vaping, this has dissuaded them from the consumption of other forms of tobacco products including conventional tobacco smoking. The research specifically mentioned that vaping is a “roadblock” obstructing tobacco products.
Further, Howell stated that most of the stores selling vaping products tend to exercise their responsibilities of ensuring that any vaping products are sold to those above 18 years old and no younger. There have been many instances where other products are still sold despite a strict regulation being enforced to not sell to minors. In this instance, the vaping industry has always been generally well regulated even during times when it was not illegal to sell vaping products to those under the age of 18.
Howell stated that the Applachian Fog has always stood a strong stance of never selling to minors, “We haven’t sold to anyone under the age of 16 since we opened, that has been our store’s policy”.
In his personal experience, Howell benefited personally from vaping as it enabled him to completely quit conventional tobacco smoking. He used to smoke around 2 packets of cigarettes a day for up to 20 years and as a quickly as two days into vaping, his addiction and urge to smoke tobacco cigarettes vanished.
The concern of this increase in taxes has affected many local vaping stores throughout West Virginia state as it may be possible for online vaping retailers to be more affordable to consumers than purchasing a vape product in any store within the West Virginia area (due to the foreseeable increase in taxes). Howell mentioned that the impact would mean his products such as e-liquid bottles being increased up to 30% per bottle in order to make a decent enough profit to continue sales of the product.
“Nicorette, why aren’t they taxing that? It has nicotine in it. Lozenges, why don’t they tax them? Nicotine inhalers, real close cousin, why don’t they tax it?” Howell stated, “It feels like they’re targeting us because it looks like smoking, when it’s not smoking.”
“I have no idea what’s going to happen next month, people might walk in here and see how much it costs and walk out,” Howell advocated.
It is highly unfortunate that this increase in taxes has hit so close to home for many of our vaping enthusiasts and we can only hope for the better. Our sympathies are with the vaping stores and we urge everyone to help out their local businesses as major conglomerates and other internet businesses (that are not run by local businesses) have the tendency for abusing manufacturers to cut costs really low with a compromise on quality and safety.
Let us know what you think about the increase in taxes affecting West Virginia state, share your opinions and if this affects you personally whether it be your business or for your recreation, do leave a comment below. We’re looking forward to hearing back from our readers as although this may have only affected a handful of states, it may be only a matter of time until the entire country is at stake.