Washington bill (6569) would tax tobacco substitutes (including e-cigs) at 95%, referred to Senate Ways and Means Cmte

Bill Godshall;12477281 said:

Joe Baba of the WA vape Association sent the following e-mail today about yesterday's rally in Olympia.


Good Morning

Shaking the cob webs out of my head and realizing it is an hour later than normal. Thanks for being patient with my delayed update; just needed to get caught up on some much needed rest.

RALLY
Even with all the curve balls thrown at us by Mother Nature, we had several hundred Vapers attend the rally at the north steps of the Capital. It was a great sight to see and the support was obvious. Representatives Muri, Reykhal, Hunt and Wilcox were guest speakers along with our Lobbyist Stu Halsan and Vaporium's Kim Thompson closed out the presentation for us. The show of strength had to send a strong message to the legislature – WE ARE NOT ROLLING OVER – WE ARE NOT EASY TARGETS – WE WILL NOT QUIT UNTIL THE BILL IS DEAD! Thanks to a strong sense of urgency and commitment, our group of manufacturers, distributors, retailers and fellow vapers all banded together, united in one-voice – collectively we were able to rally support in an effort to save our business model, and ultimately people's lives!

To see pictures, please visit https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=677078402356639&set=a.677084359022710&type=1&theater

Next Steps
Stu Halsan has given us a "To Do" list for the next couple of days. The FOCUS is on calling constituents from our own Districts (House Representatives and Senator) so we aren't calling members in districts which we don't live or work in. To find your contact information in your specific district, go to http://app.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/ and make the 3 calls:

House Republicans
If your House Rep is Republican, thank him/her for supporting us and encourage them to continue opposing legislation that would add any new taxes to vaping products
House Democrats
If your Representative is either Reykhal, Blake, Goodman, Hurst, Kirby, Moscoso, Pettigrew, Santos and Sells, please do the same and extend a Thank You for opposing HB2795 and ask for continued support against a new tax on vaping products.
Senators
If your Senator is Andy Hill (Kirkland, Woodinville, Sammamish) , Steve Litzow (Bellevue, Mercer Island, Issaquah) or Joe Fain (Covington, Auburn, Kent); ask them to stand strong and oppose legislation containing new taxes on vaping products (reference HB2795 and SB6569); thank them for opposing the tax.
Democrat Senators need to hear from us as well
This amounts to 3 phone calls per person. Please remind/encourage all customers, friends, family members, etc. to make their calls. If the elected officials don't hear from us, they think we don't care. WE DO CARE so the calls have to be made. Putting this Call To Action on social media tools will help this go viral.

We are entering the HOME STRETCH – the session is about to end this Thursday. The consensus is that the officials are not interested in having an extended Special Session so we only have a couple of days this week to make our points. Much like our personal vaporizers, it's in our hands to kill the effort to tax our products out of existence!

WA Vape Association also had a meeting with the Anti-Tobacco Alliance and initial discussions went very well. More on this in coming weeks. For those of you supporting WA Vape, please send your checks of support to:

WA Vape Association
10 SE Everett Mall Way
Suite C
Everett, WA 98208

We appreciate your support.

Regards,

Joe Baba
WA Vape Association
360-348-2029

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