ollieninh said:
Well no, I am not sure that we can be so definite about the current legal status of MMA in nails.
You say it is a criminal offense, I have not seen the state regulations written in that manner, what I have seen are 'civil codes', therefore civil offense with extremely mild enforcement and mild penelties.
? Are you saying that it is a civil offense instead of a criminal offense? There is a pretty big diff there. Though I personally have not read each states statutes on the issue... it was my understanding that it was a
criminal offence, not civil.
You say call the 'feds'. No, actually the feds have stayed out of it and the feds have wanted to stay out of it, perfering the state regulartory boards to lead the way.
I was actually taking the piss about the Feds
For the international users... The Feds only get involved if a criminal offence spans states... Actually... maybe they would get involved if they were to discover an american individual selling MMA accross into states where it was an illegal offence... That would warrant a fedral offence wouldnt it?
Now, when the owner of one of the largest beauty/nail supply companies in the world writes me and says to me " Ken, to me MMA is a non-issue ", does that mean we have beaten MMA, that the use of MMA is on the decline, that the consumer is so well informed on MMA that the consumers are fleeing the MMA use shops in droves ? I don't think so.
It just means like (for a huge protion of us) MMA is a non issue from a distribution standpoint as its not like you are losing customers to MMA buyers.
For the industry as a whole though, it is an issue as it can have serious reprocussions on the perception of nails to the consumer.
The people irresponsible and ridiculous enough to use MMA are generaly not responsible enough to work in a manner that promotes sanitation, safety, and healthy client natural nails.
I think it means that we have pursured the MMA issue in a vigirous manner, investing great amounts of time and resources into anti-mma campagins and we have evaluated the results and evaluated how much more will have to be devoted to anti-mma to gain any further progress, and, decided to pay attention now to some of the other pots on the stove, like Sanitation.
I have mentioned this before about the USA and the UK timeline. In the USA we have already gone thur so much on the bell curve of measuring the life cycle of the beginning, the growth and the materity of the *NSS and MMA because our own time line began so long ago. In the UK you are still in the earlier portions of the cycles we have already completed, and of course, your being in a different place and time, you have many viewpoints that we in the USA held earlier.
Just because you feel that its a worthless battle in the US doesnt mean that internationally its the same thing.
Already moves are being made to introduce legislation in the UK to make it illegal to use MMA in the salon.
The benefit of being a couple of years behind the US in market development is that we can learn from the mistakes made in the US. I have watched this with things like primer usage, nipper usage, and methods of natural nail plate preparation. Internationally, the technicians are generaly much better at protecting the health of the natural nail than the licensed US counterparts.
Sure, there are far too many people internationaly that don't... but still a heck of a lot less per capita than my home (USA).