Cigarettes are bad for you, but some people enjoy smoking them, and we are all free to make this trade-off between health and pleasure. We are also free to enjoy nicotine-free electronic cigarettes, which basically deliver flavoured water vapour to your lungs, undoubtedly a healthier alternative to tobacco smoke. But add nicotine to that e-cigarette, and all of a sudden you have a product that Health Canada has decided cannot be sold in Canada. What gives?
Timothy P. Carney of the Washington Examiner has an explanation for what’s behind “the global push to clamp down on e-cigarettes,” and it has little to do with lawmakers’ disinterested concern for your health. Rather, it’s about pharmaceutical companies not wanting e-cigarettes to compete with their nicotine gums and patches as an alternative way of kicking the tobacco habit. What kinds of regulations end up being adopted in Europe and the United States will depend not on the objective facts of the matter, but on which industry lobbyists can cajole, bribe, and weasel better than the rest. Judging from the fact that President Obama has named former drug company lobbyist Mitch Zeller to head the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, e-cigarettes may just wind up banned south of the border the way they are here in Canada.
Who’s to blame for this kind of regulatory capture: crooked politicians or crooked businesspeople? Obviously, both. But the problem is also systemic. As long as governments have the power to regulate our lives, powerful people will twist those regulations to suit their interests, not ours. Big business loves regulation, not only because they can control it to some extent, but also because it helps them maintain their entrenched market positions. They can afford the teams of lawyers required to deal with mountains of rules. Small upstarts who might otherwise challenge their market dominance are effectively hobbled by the burden of regulatory compliance.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We could try less regulation and more reliance on free market competition and tort law. Companies, big or small, that offer better, cheaper products that people want to buy would win market share. Consumers who are misled about the risks of certain products could sue for damages, and the threat of such legal recourse would keep most producers in line. Would such a system be perfect? Of course not. But would it be better than the current, heavily regulated alternative? Undoubtedly.
Who’s to blame for this kind of regulatory capture: crooked politicians or crooked businesspeople? Obviously, both. But the problem is also systemic. As long as governments have the power to regulate our lives, powerful people will twist those regulations to suit their interests, not ours. Big business loves regulation, not only because they can control it to some extent, but also because it helps them maintain their entrenched market positions. They can afford the teams of lawyers required to deal with mountains of rules. Small upstarts who might otherwise challenge their market dominance are effectively hobbled by the burden of regulatory compliance.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We could try less regulation and more reliance on free market competition and tort law. Companies, big or small, that offer better, cheaper products that people want to buy would win market share. Consumers who are misled about the risks of certain products could sue for damages, and the threat of such legal recourse would keep most producers in line. Would such a system be perfect? Of course not. But would it be better than the current, heavily regulated alternative? Undoubtedly.