UPS to Stop Vape Shipments to Businesses & Consumers

It's official, all major shipping providers (USPS, FedEx, DHL, and UPS) have announced they will be banning shipping vape products to consumers this year. "Effective April 5th, 2021, UPS will not transport vaping products to, from, or within the United States due to the increased complexity to ship those products," this quote being directly from a spokesperson for UPS. This news came just weeks before USPS and FedEx announced they will be eliminating shipping of products beginning March 2021. This may not seem like terrible news for those who live relatively close to a vape shop, keep in mind the PMTA enforcement is impending around mid 2021. A storm is brewing with no silver-lining in sight, especially for online vape shops like us at Vapor Empire.

In the second half of 2020, a year that will live in infamy, the FDA's PMTA created a massive paywall for manufacturers and creators to continue to legally sell vape products to consumers. This was only the beginning of the corruption tornado that has moved towards vaping. With USPS banning vape deliveries, they also force sellers like us into the the PACT act (Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act). With the sinister tone of associating e-cigarettes with illegal drug traffickers, e-cigarette sellers must now follow a list of extremely stringent requirements including:

• Register with the U.S. Attorney General/ATF
• Verify age of customers using a commercially available database (every reputable online vape shop is already doing this)
• Use private shipping services that collect an adult signature at the point of delivery (definitely reasonable)
• Sellers like us must register with the federal government as well as the tobacco tax administrators of the states that tax these products
• Send each taxing state's tax administrator a list of each and every transaction with customers in their state, this includes the names plus addresses of each customer that made a purchase; they even want the quantities and types of every single product
• Maintain records for five years of any "delivery interrupted because the carrier or service determines or has reason to believe that the person ordering the delivery is in violation of the [PACT Act]”

If these rules aren't followed, the sellers could face penalties that reach up to prison time. To put it simply, the shippers and the government are driving out all retail sales and only wholesalers will be able to ship to vape shops within close proximity.

Remember when the current governor of New York Andrew Cuomo made this infamous quote in 2019? This was perfect foreshadowing for how e-cigarettes would be treated going into the year 2020 and now 2021. When reading through all the literature and "facts" spouted out by anti-tobacco groups like flavorshookkids.org, and our own government entities like the FDA and CDC, you'll find the primary focus to rid the world of the evil e-cigarette is to prevent youth from vaping. While this is a noble endeavor which all of us at Vapor Empire are behind (also the for having agechecker and manually checking hundreds of orders on a daily basis), the anti-tobacco groups seem to sadly forget about the law-abiding adults who simply want to ditch combustible tobacco and never go back.

The e-cigarette industry grew at an insanely fast rate because it gives adults what they want, a smoking cessation tool which is enjoyable and effective. E-cigarettes work as the best smoking cessation tool because there are so many options; If you have a sweet tooth like me, get a candy flavored e-liquid (yes im over 21 years old, adults like candy too). Candy is too sweet for you, go for a savory dessert or breakfast flavor. The choices were seemingly endless and that makes for a happy customer because they have a higher chance of finding a product that perfectly suits their needs.

Unfortunately vaping has become a double edged sword and while it's doing tremendous work to lengthen the lives of ex-smokers, it's also getting the attention of the youth of our world. The best way to have combatted this issue would have been to target those who actually provide the products to the youth, but sadly that message has fallen on deaf ears.

Now the e-cigarette industry is being pushed back into the 20th century to only be allowed to be purchased in-person, and with that will come far higher prices with new protocol every single seller and manufacturer must abide by. So for those who want more options, you're gonna have to settle with what the government says you can have, and what anti-tobacco lobbyists pay for you to have.