From: US News & World Report
By Peter Roff | Contributing Editor for Opinion
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When Turner and the others started what became the successful Vapewild brand, they had just 30 employees. The concept was a relatively new idea in the vaping business and the brand took off like a rocket. By the end of 2016, they had grown their operation to more than 320 employees, a number of them combat veterans, spread across two facilities located around Dallas, Texas, plus a four-person operation in Ireland acting as a fulfillment center for European customers. The product was all manufactured in the United States. Everything was going great. Then the roof fell in.
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“They placed regulations on us that imposed pretty major hurdles on our ability to stay in business. We spent over $100,000 just on registering the company and the products as they demanded and that was before we had to deal with the pre-market tobacco application,” Turner says. “Anything we made had to be subjected to a rigorous, cost prohibitive longitudinal study we would have to commission and pay for. It would cost millions,” money the small but prosperous and growing business just didn’t have.