Vaping National Standard Removed from Standards Site? Rumor!

Recently, many media outlets have reported that the national standard for vaping devices was removed from the official website, with some even claiming it may be delayed indefinitely.
 
In response, I specifically contacted a friend involved in drafting the national standard. He was quite upset after hearing this and said it was pure rumor-mongering. The national standard for vaping devices has not been taken offline. Rather, because the search system on the homepage is undergoing maintenance and upgrades, all standards have temporarily become unsearchable.
 
However, when I asked when the standard would actually go live, my friend said, “It’s hard to say.” He only told me that the chances are fairly high that it will be released this year, because there are still internal disagreements.

As for what those disagreements are, he was not in a position to say more. So here I can only make a guess that I can’t prove, but that seems logical.

Because of my industry background, I’ve previously participated in research on many other industries and companies, including issues related to the formulation of national standards. At first, I thought standards were mainly created to protect consumers and users from harmful products. Later, after speaking with insiders, I realized that this is only one of the reasons and reference factors behind standard-setting. Another purpose of national standards is to ensure that most companies in the industry are able to meet them, continue production, and generate profits and tax revenue.

If you think about it carefully, protecting users and protecting businesses are, to some extent, in conflict. If standards are set too high, user interests may be better protected, but if most companies cannot meet them, then the standards cannot really be implemented. Therefore, the core of standard-setting lies in balance.

For vaping devices, it is not only necessary to balance the interests of the vaping industry and users, but also to balance the interests of the vaping industry and the traditional tobacco industry. Wherever there is balancing, there is conflict. Who gets a bigger share, who gets less, and who gets to carve up the pie? And this conflict is not only cross-industry, but crosses into an industry that nobody dares to provoke. Not only do people not dare provoke it, many media outlets don’t even dare mention it. It reminds me of a scene from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, where people avoid naming Voldemort directly and instead call him “you-know-who” or “the man who must not be named.”

Personally, I think this is the main reason why the vaping standard has taken so long to finalize. Otherwise, for something as straightforward as a vaping device, it seems unlikely that the delay would really be stuck on product quality standards alone.

Of course, these are just my usual speculations. I don’t have any hard evidence, and it may all be nonsense, so take it with a grain of salt. That said, I really would like to know what everyone thinks about this issue. If anyone has inside information, feel free to share it with us, so people don’t have to keep waiting so anxiously or guessing wildly like I do. It would be better if we could all put our energy into more practical matters sooner rather than later—for the good of the whole industry, wouldn’t it?