The Vape Company at the Center of the FDA Storm

On the outskirts of Dallas, Texas, at an unassuming warehouse, two young men in scrubs carefully weigh out liquid nicotine. All they do is measure, actually. They move back and forth in a clean room, a carefully engineered space intended to keep out unwanted airborne particles. It almost sounds windy when you open the door.

A computer spits out what they need—this much propylene glycol, this much vegetable glycerin, this much flavoring—before the e-liquid barrel moves onto a gyroscopic mixer. (Imagine a washing machine, and you won’t be too far off.) From there, about a dozen or so employees will bottle and label the e-liquid in an assembly line, readying it for either immediate distribution or storage.

All the while, each ingredient has been tracked and has the…