Watch interview with CASAA’s Alex Clark. Colorado advocates make progress. New York extends hobbled flavor ban and other “ironic idiocy.” Jacob Sullum writes about war on nicotine. USA Today article focuses on true cause of EVALI outbreak. How FDA reacts to smoked fish vs smoke-free vapes. Snus is successful harm reduction in Sweden. California ban update. Lawmakers think they’ll get $200 million from vapor industry.
CASAA IN ACTION: Watch CASAA CEO Alex Clark’s interview last night discussing the ANTZ mentality, tobacco and the flavor ban situations in Massachusetts and New York, on Regulator Watch Canada with Brent Stafford.
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TAKING ACTION: (COLORADO) After speaking w/vaping advocates, Senator Rhonda Fields now says she no longer intends to sponsor a flavor ban bill in the immediate future. Governor Jared Polis remains on the fence. Your voice matters–MEET with your lawmakers!
Colorado Lawmakers Pumping the Brakes on Flavored Vaping Ban
NEW YORK: (UPDATE) State extends flavor ban 90 days in case court rules in its favor. Advocates are hopeful ruling delay may be a sign that the court isn’t convinced by state’s claim that flavored vapor products are causing a “public health emergency.”
New York extends flavor e-cigarette ban for 90 more days
SCIENCE-FREE POLICIES: In what can only be called “ironic idiocy,” New York’s Governor Cuomo orders insurance companies to cover the cost of pharmaceutical products (that have been found to be 2X LESS effective than vaping to quit smoking) to help people quit vaping, when they could just step down the nicotine in their vapor products to 0 mg. This is something vape shops could help with if they weren’t constrained by FDA rules or put out of business by NY bans.
NY to insurers: Cover cost of vaping cessation care
WAR ON NICOTINE: (Jacob Sullum, Reason)
“Thanks to unfounded warnings that e-cigarettes are hooking “a whole generation of young people,” members of Congress who want to eliminate the federal ban on marijuana, which was originally imposed in the name of protecting America’s youth, think that same goal justifies a new federal ban that would make it impossible for adults to legally obtain the nicotine products they demonstrably prefer. The paradox is all the more puzzling because those legislators recognize that the recent outbreak of vaping-related lung injuries, which are associated mainly with illegal cannabis extracts, is not a sound argument for pot prohibition. Since the real hazard seems to be dangerous additives or contaminants in black-market products of unknown provenance and composition, prohibition only increases the risks to consumers.”
This Was the Decade When Politicians Stopped Panicking About Marijuana and Started Panicking About Nicotine
IN THE NEWS: One of few MSM articles finally reporting on EVALI outbreak without implicating retail nicotine products, keeps focus solely on tainted THC carts–where it always should have been. But the CDC & the lawmakers banning e-cigs have yet to #QuitLying
Vaping lung disease: CDC doesn’t track where legal vapes were sold
THE MORE YOU KNOW: Note how “an abundance of caution” by @US_FDA for tainted salmon only results in a recall and a warning regarding the SPECIFIC product, not urging the public to “avoid ALL salmon” vs. how they warned “avoid ALL vaping” for EVALI.
Smoked salmon sold in Massachusetts recalled
SCIENCE-BASED POLICIES: Snus, banned in EU & vilified in US, has 30+ years research showing NO increased disease risk. Popular w/Swedish men, smoking rates are 8% vs EU 25% average. Safer alternatives smoking–yes, even tobacco–saves lives. #QuitLying
Swedish men on target to be first to completely stub out smoking | Stock Daily Dish
CALIFORNIA: (UPDATE) Menlo Park, Palo Alto joining the many other state municipalities in passing irrational and baseless e-cigarette bans.
Menlo Park, Palo Alto moving forward on e-cigarette bans – Palo Alto Daily Post
ECONOMICS 101: If you ban 90% of an industry’s most popular products, double the cost w/taxes, severely restrict where they can be sold & prohibit sales to a great number of the adult market, it’s doubtful there will be $200 million in profits to collect.
How would millions of dollars in fees on e-cigarettes be spent? Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi have a plan for that.
If you’re on Facebook, please be sure to join your CASAA state group to help prevent anti-harm reduction laws like these from spreading through your state! Click here to find your state group: CASAA State Facebook Group List
Find your state information here: Find My State Info – CASAA
And don’t forget to officially join CASAA. Membership is FREE. CASAA is made stronger with every voice we can count!
This article was originally published at CASAA
Author: KNoll-Marsh