You may have already heard that US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced their deeming regulations early in May 2016 and basically what that means to us hookah lovers is that starting August 8, 2016 FDA will start regulating Hookah tobacco, pipes and charcoal.
The regulations state that any product that wasn’t already on the market before February 15, 2007 must be approved by FDA to continue to be on the market. The predicate date of February 15, 2007 is considered to be an unfair date for 90% of the hookah products on the market today since most of them didn’t exist at that time.
In order for these products to continue to be on the market it is going to cost the companies an estimated amount over 1 million dollar per product. FDA estimates that over 90% of businesses will not be able to afford those humongous fees.
FDA ignored calls to change the predicate date, which remains February 15, 2007. The good news is that at the moment there is a proposal in Congress that would change the predicate date from February 15, 2007 to August 8, 2016. This change would significantly lower the regulatory burden faced by hookah companies, and would ensure the ability of companies without access to 02/15/2007 data to be able to comply.
CALL FOR ACTION
CocoNara (coconaraonline.com) is following this proposal in Congress closely and will be sending you information soon on how you can identify your representative in the US Congress and we will provide you with an email template that you are free to use to email your representative and ask them to support the proposal in Congress to change the predicate date.
WHO CAN CONTACT THEIR REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS?
Hookah businesses, convenient stores, hookah shops, employees of these businesses, hookah smokers, hookah lovers, and their friends and family.
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO IN THE MEANTIME?
- Add our email address offers@coconaraonline.com to your contact list or address book to insure that you get our future emails with instructions on how to proceed.
- Get involved and spread the word about the information I just provided in this blog
- Share this blog with friends, family and people in the hookah business
- Join our mailing list on coconaraonline.com to get future updates from us.
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