the products in the real world (rather than in some theoretical regulatory model). 1. There are no user communities for what might be described as the medical equivalents such as nicotine inhalers, gum, skin patches, lozenges and so on, nor for the psychoactive drugs. (Both ecigarettes and these drugs have roughly the same aim: allowing smokers to avoid tobacco cigarettes.) People use such things under duress; the products are neither pleasant nor attractive to use; and they are designed to be unattractive so that people don’t want to use them in the long term. No one is going to be enthusiastic about them; no one is reporting on the issues on a scale sufficient to provide useful information to users or useful warnings to avoid certain products. In practice there is no support or information grapevine. 2. It is also fairly important to realise that much the same thing will apply to e-cigarettes with a pharmaceutical license. It may not be appreciated but the life cycle of most e-cigarette products is about 6 to 9 months: they come onto the market, become popular, and are then replaced by new and better products. The market is so young that technical developments are faster even than those in the world of cellphones. If something lasts a year or more it is unusual and is normally a case of exceptional engineering in some form. What is used now among the community bears no relation to the products of three years ago, which have mostly been obso-
-lete for two years now. They are regarded as ineffective, low performance, unattractive, expensive in terms of performance vs cost, and just generally old-fashioned and funny. This is a rocket-propelled market area and every year is worth ten years in the car trade; the equivalent makes it easy to understand the issues: there would be very few takers for a 30-year old car model sold as new today and at a higher price than newer, better cars. Who would buy a Morris Minor at £25,000 or an Oldsmobile Cutlass Diesel at $35,000? No one in their right mind. But this is what will be asked of licensed e-cigarette buyers; they will only work in pharmacies. People are not going to pay $5,000 for a Betamax video recorder today and they won’t be enthusiastic about exactly the same deal on an e-cigarette either: an old clunker at double the cost of something modern that works four times as well. You can immediately see that the minimum 3-year license delay, at about £2m cost, is not going to work well in this market. The first ecig company to apply for a pharmaceutical license more than three years ago still don’t have their license. The cost ballooned by a factor of 20, and they still cannot see daylight - even though they probably have the most advanced manufacturing plant in Europe and are supported by local and international university academics from here to Geneva.