On Thursday, the U.S.. Food and Drug Administration announced that it will regulate all tobacco products, such as e-cigarettes, cigars and hookah tobacco, to name a few.

Up until now, the FDA was only able to regulate cigarettes and cigarette-related products and smokeless tobacco.

“This action is a milestone in consumer protection — going forward, the FDA will be able to review new tobacco products not yet on the market, help prevent misleading claims by tobacco product manufacturers, evaluate the ingredients of tobacco products and how they are made, and communicate the potential risks of tobacco products,” the FDA released in a statement regarding the changes.

Under the new rule, the U.S.. Food and Drug Administration would have to approve all tobacco products regulated that hit stores after February 2007.

In response to the announcement, the Smoke-Free Alternative Trade Association (SFATA) stated,

“Today’s final rule pulls the rug out from the nine million smokers who have switched to vaping, putting them in jeopardy of returning back to smoking, which kills 480,000 Americans each year and costs the U.S.. more than $300 billion in annual health care expenses. These new regulations create an enormously cost-prohibitive regulatory process for manufacturers to market their products to adult smokers and vapers. It also limits access to the 40 million adult smokers in the U.S.. yet to make the switch to vaping and cripples a multi-billion dollar job-creating industry, the majority of which are made of small businesses.”

Some local businesses were not too pleased with the announcement either. Tom Jordan, the manager of Hub City Vapors say he and other vape shops are disappointed with the FDA’s decision to extend its regulations.

“We’re really disappointed in the FDA’s decision to regulate e-cigarettes as they regulate traditional cigarettes,” said Jordan. “On the national level, this decision will affect several smokers who are now vapors. It’s not only a smoke issue it’s a job issue. There are thousands and thousands of jobs that have been created in the e-cig industry in the past years.”

Employees over Green Gorilla Smoke and Vape Shop manager, say the announcement did not come as a surprise to them, and that they have actually be trying to prepare for these regulations for quite some time.

“We already knew it was coming. We kind of prepare for it and thought about what we’re going to do to make things better for people to handle this as well,” said Jonathan Chinners, manager of Green Gorilla. “For the customer, it may mean that things are  going to be a little bit more expensive. We’re going to counteract that work with companies and things like that, to keep prices down for people because there are going to be some taxes that are brought in.”

Chinners says that although he realizes the new changes is sure to change the business model for several companies and raise prices for customers, that the purpose of the new regulations is a positive one.

“Right now, being a new industry there’s no regulation. People can mix this stuff in the back room, bed room, in the garage whatever so it’s going to put in some law enforcement saying ‘hey this stuff is going to be sold to the general public and so it needs to be made in a clean room, lab safety there needs to be some standards to do it and we support that as well. quality control and things like that because if random people are just doing it and they’re not doing it just right things can get messed up there’s going to be consistency issues people won’t be happy with what they get.”

However, for some the issue runs a little deeper than cost. For Ryan Shanks, a senior at Texas Tech, it may make buying what has become a healthier alternative for him a little more difficult.

“I thought i might as well try and get off dipping to maybe a healthier alternative and I was able to do so by switching to an e-cig, within the first couple of weeks I noticed positive signs in my health,” said Shanks. “My roommates vape as well and they both quit down on their smoking and buying packs a day.”

The regulations will take effect in 90 days.