Why Have a Professional Association

There are several tattoo and piercing associations already existing.
Unfortunately, these associations are nothing more than clubs.
They do not establish standards for training, materials, ethics and business practices.
They do not recommend or require members to accommodate or subscribe to any standards and generally are nothing more than promotional tools for their founders and fail to provide promised services.

A Professional Association that provides standards for members serves the best interests of the community by providing a safe and satisfying experience for clients, while lessening the burden of government and preventing the continuation of misinformation regarding these practices of ancient origin.

This industry has been plagued from it's earliest years with lack of cooperation and education in it's practitioners.

Jealousy, ignorance, illegal practices, fear of legislation and lack of association has made the tattoo/piercing industry an easy target for politicians who can propose inappropriate legislation in attempts at self-promotion utilizing a "save the children" campaign against an ignorant public.

Unfortunately, the industry has been just as, if not actually more ignorant about these issues and most often are more interested in limiting their supposed competition than they are about learning the truth about their craft and establishing practical, honest legislation around safe and ethical practice, training standards and self-policing.

As a result, especially in the late 1990's, hundreds of politicians around the country began proposing restrictive "save the children" legislation that had little to no basis in fact.

These fear mongering political tactics are reprehensible and the public have been duped by unscrupulous politicians, while the unorganized artists have been subjected to regulations that do not legitimately apply to their profession.

All professions attract persons from the full spectrum of humanity, from highly trained and ethical practitioners to untrained, unethical and often criminal xxxxxx's.

The big difference in say Medical Fraud and Body Art Fraud is that the medical industry is highly organised and almost immune from legislative intervention.

The Medical Profession has established self-regulatory associations that set standards and codes of ethics for their membership that do protect the public in most cases and make it difficult for persons who will not comply with such standards and codes of conduct to gain access to the public.

This has not existed in the Body Art Profession - until now.

The Body Art Profession has been plagued with unscrupulous people who care little for quality of service, materials used in the service, cleanliness, safety or the protection and improvement of their own industry.

It is common for tattooists to promote ignorant and unsafe practices as an advantage in an effort, not to protect the public but rather to demean their competition.

Many more tattooists and piercers practice from secret, underground offices at home and while they are the biggest danger to the public, they are essentially practicing under the radar of any regulatory agency and are typically not of interest to such agents who are suppose to be protecting the community.

Government is as always already overwhelmed by regulations and rarely have the budget or manpower or interest in taking the supervisory, investigatory and penalizing measures written into state and municipal codes.