Australian Tobacco Alternatives Consumer Association

[soundasleep]

After months of planning, a small leave of absense due to the birth of my baby girl, and a lot of hard work I'm proud to say that Australian now has it's very own e-cigarette consumer association!

The following is our official blurb:
ATACA is made up of everyday Australians who are concerned for the health of Australian smokers and want the issue tackled intelligently with Harm Reduction options and smoking alternatives, not blanket bans and junk science.
ATACA supports the availability of low risk tobacco options such as Swedish Snus and electronic cigarettes to dramatically reduce the damage caused both directly and indirectly by tobacco smoking.

ATACA is supported by contributions from our members as well as several of Australia’s electronic cigarette vendors. They may not be able to legally tell you that their products work brilliantly for smoking cessation, but we can.

We are currently operating as an unincorporated association, with plans to incorporate sometime over the next 12 months. The current Australian laws regarding the sale and usage of safer alteratives is bordering on the obscene, so it's time to band together and do something about it!

"It's Our Lives - It's Our Future"

The only way our government will ever listen to us is if we have one thing - raw numbers. So please check out our site and join ATACA today. Together we CAN make a difference!

Current discussions include choosing our official logo, and setting up an "Associated Vendor" program. We've had a massive response in just the last week so the decision was made to bring ATACA to the world's largest e-cigarette online community and spread the word even further!

There is still a lot of hard work in front of us, so this thread will be regularly updated once decisions are made and new initiatives are begun.

 

[soundasleep]

Member Requirements:

Anybody can become an ATACA member. However with plans to incorporate soon (making us a lot more "legit" in the eyes of government bodies) there are a few requirements that we thought we'd start right away instead of having to chase it all up later.

* Your ATACA account must contain your real name, postcode and if you are directly involved with any vendor.

The reasons for this are:

1. Any members of an incorporated association must be kept on record. These records are NOT public and can only be viewed by the site admin (me) - and once established, our Board.
2. There is no point telling MP's we have "x" number of members if we don't know who these people are, and what electorate they are a part of.
3. Being an Australian organisation, only Aussie members will have voting rights. We need to know if you are involved with a vendor so you can be excluded from any voting that would be seen as a "conflict of interest".

* You must be subscribed to our mailing list

This is likely to be a temporary measure, but since members come from lots of different places, and aren't all on the same forums, it allows us to ensure that all members are kept up to date with current discussions and final decisions.

 

[soundasleep]

Time for the first snippet of what is looking to become pretty big news...

We started organising a meetup for World Vaping Day and it is quickly becoming so much more than that...

Melbourne's first "VapeFest" will be held on Saturday, 24th March from 1PM onwards!
Venue: Kelly's Bar and Kitchen, Olinda.

More details to follow soon...

 

[soundasleep]

I am proud to annouce that VapeBar is not only the first ATACA Associated Vendor, but also our first "Gold Rated" vendor!

Big round of applause for the boys and girls at VapeBar for showing their support, and all their assistance to date.

I was initially going to send out an ATACA Update tonight with this big news, but with some more big news about the Melbourne VapeFest (hopefully) just around the corner, I'm going to keep you all in suspense for a few more days

 

[Hackcessor]

I am proud to annouce that VapeBar is not only the first ATACA Associated Vendor, but also our first "Gold Rated" vendor!

Big round of applause for the boys and girls at VapeBar for showing their support, and all their assistance to date.

I was initially going to send out an ATACA Update tonight with this big news, but with some more big news about the Melbourne VapeFest (hopefully) just around the corner, I'm going to keep you all in suspense for a few more days

We are pleased to be on-board Soundasleep and look forward to assisting ATACA where possible.

MJ

 

[Ravenscroft]

Congrats on that Hackcessor.

The VapeFest sounds great.

RC

 

[soundasleep]

As of yesterday we have split off the mailing list from the Full Member List.

What does this mean?

Basically it means you can be kept up to date with ATACA activities via the Mailing List without needing to be a Full Member. With the creation of a "Members Area" section we have also removed the requirement for all Full Members to be on the mailing list.

We have also setup two FaceBook pages:
ATACA page
Melbourne VapeFest page

 

[soundasleep]

I'd like to give a big welcome and thank you to ATACA's two newest Associated Vendors. The first one you might have heard of before

JW - Makers of Premium Hand-Made eJuice Products
(I can't print the full name here, ECF gets unhappy)

The E-Cig Shop - Providing e-cig sales and support to the Deeragun area (Queensland)

ATACA Associated Vendors agree to meet a minimum set of requirements to ensure the best possible experience and peace of mind to their customers.

 

[soundasleep]

CALLING ALL VENDORS

With less than 3 weeks until Melbourne VapeFest something occured to me today. I've been in contact with quite a few Aussie vendors so far, but I'm sure I've missed people in all the craziness.

I'd like to make a extend a "formal" invitation to all Australian vendors to consider joining ATACA's Associated Vendor program, and ask if there is anybody I haven't asked that would like to contribute samples or anything else to help with VapeFest.

Our vendor requirements can be viewed here: Associated Vendor Requirements | ATACA

These requirements have been crafted to ensure good business practice while not placing any unneccessary burden on the operations of each vendor. Should anybody be interested but is concerned with any particular requirement let me know and we can discuss it further.

I can be contacted on this forum, via PM, or directly via the ATACA website.

Thank you again to everybody who has contributed so far!

 

[soundasleep]

Melbourne VapeFest 2012 Official Details Announced!

 

[soundasleep]

I have spent the last two days putting together a list of all known Australia e-cig vendors:

Other Australian Vendors | ATACA

As of a few minutes ago every vendor on this list has been sent an invitation to join the ATACA Associated Vendor Program.

If I have left anybody out, please let me know through the usual channels.

 

[soundasleep]

I've just finished an "ATACA Associated Vendor Application Form" to make the process easier for both vendors and ourselves.

Associated Vendor Application Form | ATACA

 

[soundasleep]

Just two more sleeps until the first Melbourne VapeFest!

The event will be "liveblogged" onto our Facebook page.

As posted on Facebook earlier today:

Everything is here, packed and ready to go including...

"Try and Win Competition" - $5 entry gets you:
1. Your own drip tip for sampling
2. Over 20 different flavours to taste test
3. Lots of different cartos and battery combinations to try out
4. Chance to win a Joye 510-T kit, SmokTech 510 style carto starter kit or complete Joye eGo-C starter kit

High end products including JiB OLED, Provari, Liquinator, Jazz and Dragon pipes to see and try.

Random prizes throughout the day including 18650 tube mods, free cartos, disposable mini-kits and Cherry Vape Ming tips.

Discounted eGo PT and 510 carto starter kits, SmokeTech tanks and various carto types to purchase.
UPDATE: SmokTech eGo XXL Kits and SmokTech Auto Black 510 kits now also available.

Special Guest: Eric from EPM to answer your technical questions and show of his tank systems.

Limited finger food will be provided throughout the day and Kelly's has a fantastic selection of full meals, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.

EDIT: Apart from the bleeding obvious fact that I'll be running the event (with Rohan), if you haven't met me before just look for that hat

 

[soundasleep]

I've finally had a chance to situp and write a followup to our first public event:

Melbourne VapeFest 2012 | ATACA

 

[soundasleep]

The member database purge is happening right now.


If you receive an email informing you have been unsubscribed from our General Mailing List this is because your Full Account did not contain all the necessary details and has been deleted.


If you'd like to stay up-to-date without being a Full Member you can resubscribe to just the mailing list:

ATACA General Member List

 

[MarVp]

Hi soundasleep,

Good work on starting a consumer association in Australia to focus on harm minimization. I just wished to comment on the name chosen for the association. It is an ambiguous title and I feel it should make reference to cigarettes, smoking or tobacco-smoking rather than just tobacco. By saying Tobacco Alternatives one could mean either products not containing tobacco (of which nicotine products, both with and without some of the other alkaloids found in tobacco would be included) or it could mean tobacco products in their entirety (which includes cigarettes and smokeless). The real focus of such an association should be to provide alternatives to smoking and other harmful uses of tobacco.

I am a Swedish Snus user and feel one could assume by the title of the organisation that this smokeless tobacco product, which has been shown to be extremely low risk by countless studies, might not fit under such a banner.

I feel it is smoking which needs to be demonized, not necessarily tobacco. The Swedes have shown that tobacco can be prepared in such a way that its daily use by a significant proportion of their population leads to no statistically obvious serious health problems.

How about ACACA or ASACA or AHRCA or AHMCA?

 

[Amorphis2k]

I am now a proud member of ATACA. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help!

 

[Koman]

I've finally had a chance to situp and write a followup to our first public event:

Melbourne VapeFest 2012 | ATACA

Sounds a cool event. Love the vapefests!

 

[cirrus76]

do you know of any vendors in the perth metro area, I could only find a wholesaler not open to the public.

 

[cirrus76]

Hi soundasleep,

Good work on starting a consumer association in Australia to focus on harm minimization. I just wished to comment on the name chosen for the association. It is an ambiguous title and I feel it should make reference to cigarettes, smoking or tobacco-smoking rather than just tobacco. By saying Tobacco Alternatives one could mean either products not containing tobacco (of which nicotine products, both with and without some of the other alkaloids found in tobacco would be included) or it could mean tobacco products in their entirety (which includes cigarettes and smokeless). The real focus of such an association should be to provide alternatives to smoking and other harmful uses of tobacco.

I am a Swedish Snus user and feel one could assume by the title of the organisation that this smokeless tobacco product, which has been shown to be extremely low risk by countless studies, might not fit under such a banner.

I feel it is smoking which needs to be demonized, not necessarily tobacco. The Swedes have shown that tobacco can be prepared in such a way that its daily use by a significant proportion of their population leads to no statistically obvious serious health problems.

How about ACACA or ASACA or AHRCA or AHMCA?

maybe Nicorette could bring out a pacifier for the snus users