"Our product is as much a cigarette as a car is an electric horse," says Craig Weiss, CEO of e-cigarette maker NJOY. "But it's got the word 'cigarette' in it and it's very hard to un-ring that bell."
NJOY is a leading manufacturer of electronic cigarettes, and is on the front lines of the regulatory fight over the new technology. (Full disclosure: NJOY is also a donor to Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason TV.) Weiss recently sat down with Tracy Oppenheimer to discuss the burgeoning "vaping" industry, what's fueling the explosion of e-cigarette use, and calls to regulate the product like traditional tobacco cigarettes.
"Our policymakers in government should be making all of their decisions based on science and data, not on conjecture, not on 'Well, if it looks like a cigarette it must be a cigarette,'" argues Weiss. "That's not data. That's not science, and that's not how we should be making decisions."
Produced by Tracy Oppenheimer. Camera by Zach Weissmueller.
Music by I, Cactus, "Chartreuse Cactus"
About 7 minutes.
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For more from Weiss and ReasonTV's take on E-cigarettes, watch the ReasonTV documentary: The Truth About E-Cigarettes.
