As the popularity of electronic cigarettes grew in the United Kingdom, Totally Wicked emerged as a significant player in the vaping market, navigating both competitive pressures and increasing regulatory scrutiny. The company’s founder, Dennis Cropper, played a central role in shaping early industry standards and forging key international partnerships.
Initially, regulators, including local Trading Standards officers, focused on product safety. Officials requested childproof lids for juice refill bottles and clearer labeling. Cropper collaborated with regulators to establish appropriate wording that would set a precedent for the nascent vaping sector. However, communicating these changes to suppliers in China—where many vaping components were sourced—posed challenges. To address this, Cropper traveled to China on Christmas Eve 2009, marking one of the first visits by a Western figure to vaping manufacturers there. These connections proved vital as demand for vaping products surged in Britain.
Through Totally Wicked and his distribution company, the Electronic Cigarette Company, Cropper became a primary channel for importing Chinese vaping devices into the UK market. The company expanded internationally, launching in the United States and Germany. Between 2012 and 2013, Totally Wicked began producing its own vape liquids in Blackburn, England. The nicotine was supplied by a Northern Irish firm typically associated with smoking cessation products such as nicotine gum. The liquids combined pharmaceutical-grade nicotine with food industry flavorings and propylene glycol—a synthetic liquid used to emulate the throat sensation of smoking. Cropper emphasized that in-house production allowed control over nicotine quality and significantly increased profit margins.
As vaping's popularity expanded, regulatory attention intensified, particularly in Europe. Officials in Brussels proposed regulations requiring vape liquids to undergo clinical trials akin to those mandated for medicines. Cropper warned that the associated costs could threaten the vaping industry and push users back to cigarette smoking.
In 2013, Cropper’s confrontational approach to regulation drew controversy. He sent a series of inflammatory emails to Labour MEP Linda McAvan, the lead negotiator for the European Parliament’s revision of the Tobacco Products Directive, and the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). In one message, he reportedly accused McAvan of being “a hatchet woman” for the tobacco industry and stated she “will kill more in the first five years of e-cigarettes being banned than Hitler did in his genocide against the Jews.” McAvan later considered reporting the emails to the police.
When the emails became public, Cropper declined to apologize, asserting that his statements reflected his genuine views. Facing a public relations crisis, the company’s board arranged for him to step down as managing director in June 2013. Leadership of Totally Wicked was then passed to his younger brother, Fraser Cropper.