CASAA CALLS TO ACTION!

[kristin]

CALL TO ACTION: LOUISIANA
HB 621, known to advocates as “PMTA Registry” legislation, has passed the legislature and is heading to the governor’s desk for signing.

Please take a moment to contact Governor Landry and urge a VETO on HB 621!
If enacted, this law would change Louisiana’s existing vape Directory law by further restricting where retailers can purchase the products they sell. Currently, vape shops can buy directly from manufacturers, but if HB 621 is enacted shops will only be allowed to purchase from licensed wholesalers who make their own decisions about which products to keep in stock.

TAKE ACTION NOW: https://casaa.org/call-to-action/louisiana-stop-a-big-tobacco-protection-bill/

 

[kristin]

In this Mayo Clinic Minute, Dr. Jon Ebbert, medical director of the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center, falsely claims that "there is no 'lesser evil' when it comes to tobacco use" and "there's no safe, or safer, way to consume tobacco."

According to the FDA:
"No tobacco product is safe. However, the health risks for different tobacco products exist on a spectrum, which is sometimes referred to as a “continuum of risk.” Combusted, or smoked, tobacco products - such as cigarettes - are the most harmful type of tobacco product. Non-combusted products - such as e-cigarettes and other smokeless tobacco products - generally have lower health risks than cigarettes and other combustible tobacco products."

What does Dr. Ebbert think "continuum of risk" and "lower health risks" mean if not that some products are "safer" and a "lesser evil?"

Mayo Clinic Minute: No 'lesser evil' when it comes to tobacco use - Mayo Clinic News Network

In this Mayo Clinic Minute, Dr. Jon Ebbert, medical director of the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center, discusses why there is no "lesser evil" when it comes to tobacco use.

newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org

 

[kristin]

"The idealists in tobacco control would like to rid us of this relatively benign recreational drug. Sorry, but that will not happen, and there is no reason why it should. People use nicotine because it makes them feel better, for its pleasurable, functional and therapeutic attributes.

However, demonizing nicotine and treating all nicotine products as if they are equally harmful will obstruct the realists’ efforts to address the significant harm caused by smoking. The idealists take each ban and blockage of any nicotine product as progress to their larger goal."
~ Clive Bates

https://tobaccoreporter.com/2024/06/01/realists-and-idealists/

 

[kristin]

CALL TO ACTION: READING, MA
UPDATE

Final vote is expected on Thursday, June 13th!

This is a generational ban that will eventually lead to crazy situations like a 51 year old being able to buy a low risk vape or nicotine pouch, but a 50 year old could not.

So far no one has participated in this Call to Action. We can't stop these senseless laws without you!

TAKE ACTION NOW: https://casaa.org/call-to-action/reading-ma-stop-creeping-nicotine-prohibition/

 

[kristin]

️CALL TO ACTION: NORTH CAROLINA️
“PMTA Registry” legislation has been inserted into a non-tobacco related bill, H900, during its final moments in the Senate. It's now in the House where lawmakers will need to “concur” with the amendments made in the Senate!

TAKE ACTON NOW: https://casaa.org/call-to-action/north-carolina-stop-a-big-tobacco-protection-act/

 

[kristin]

CALL TO ACTION: NORTH CAROLINA
H900 is now in the hands of Governor Cooper!

If enacted, this law would put independent vape shops out of business, hundreds of workers out of jobs, and thousands of people at risk of returning to smoking, or delaying attempts at quitting.

Please take a minute to send an email to @NC_Governor urging him to VETO H900!

TAKE ACTION NOW: https://casaa.org/call-to-action/north-carolina-stop-a-big-tobacco-protection-act/

 

[kristin]

CALL TO ACTION: NEBRASKA
URGENT

LB 1 would change the tax on smaller vape products from a 5c/ml tax to 30% of wholesale. This has been scheduled for a committee HEARING TOMORROW, July 30, at 9:30 AM!

TAKE ACTION: https://casaa.org/call-to-action/nebraska-stop-a-tax-hike-on-vaping/

 

[kristin]

"Doctors, tobacco researchers and political leaders warn that Zyn’s marketing — which shows the brand in smoke-free environments like at work and in transportation — may perpetuate nicotine addiction among existing users or introduce nicotine to younger people."

"A better strategy from a public health approach, says Pamela Ling, the director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California San Francisco, "would be to tailor nicotine pouch availability to prescriptions, smoking cessation clinics, quit lines and other programs to help consumers with tobacco and nicotine addiction."

Meanwhile, the most deadly tobacco product--cigarettes--would still be easy to buy just about everywhere. Good plan.

Every single adult who currently smokes was once a younger person who didn't smoke. The idea that making safer alternatives to smoking more difficult to purchase than cigarettes will keep young people from ever smoking (or encourage adults to quit nicotine use) is delusional.

Furthermore, adults who are existing nicotine consumers may be more concerned about the far greater health effects of smoking than the extremely low risks from smoke-free nicotine products. Either way, whether or not they want to continue using nicotine is not any one else's business.

Big Tobacco’s viral hit may be its biggest success since cigarettes

New York (CNN) — Governments around the world have tried to kill the tobacco industry. Zyn, the brand of flavored oral nicotine pouches that comes in small, round containers resembling

www.albanyherald.com

 

[kristin]

Imperial Tobacco Canada (a subsidiary of British American Tobacco,) which sells 10 brands of cigarettes in Canada, has the audacity to say the availability of "illegal" smoke-free nicotine products is the "serious public health issue" that the Canadian government needs to address.

We live in a truly bizarro world.



RECENT MEDIA REPORTS CONFIRM THRIVING ILLEGAL NICOTINE MARKET IN QUEBEC

 

[kristin]

A Kentucky judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the state’s new PMTA registry law. The new law will ban the sale in Kentucky of all vape products except those that have either have received FDA authorization, are still undergoing review by the FDA, are currently undergoing appeal, or have had an FDA marketing denial order (MDO) stayed or reversed by the FDA or a court.

Attorney Greg Troutman told The Kentucky Lantern earlier that his clients would appeal the decision.

https://vaping360.com/vape-news/7304/kentucky-judge-dismisses-lawsuit-challenging-pmta-registry-law/

 

[kristin]

A snippet from this must-read article for THR advocates:



"Nicotine was not only that generally sinister thing, a “chemical,” but it was one you could become addicted to. Again, it’s understandable that people who weren’t specialists in addiction science wouldn’t realize that the concept itself was a much-debated thing, and people who had grown up in a War on Drugs era when “drug addicts” were seen as an undifferentiated group of miserable, ruined junkies naturally saw addiction itself—regardless of the addictive substance concerned—as a terrible condition.



Again, of course, there are those who ought to know better who use the concept to spread distrust; it amused me a few years ago when the then U.S. surgeon general, Jerome Adams, said that nicotine was “as addictive as .......” Leaving aside the whole issue of how you assess comparative addictiveness, the logical corollary here was that ...... is no more addictive than nicotine, but I doubt he would have wanted to spread that as a public health message."



In any case, some definitions of addiction or dependency now stipulate that it must be harmful, and it’s highly questionable whether nicotine—once separated from cigarette smoking—falls into that category. So there’s even a case to be made that nicotine addiction doesn’t exist as a problem in the first place. But the bottom line is that it is widely perceived to be harmful and addictive.



And that is a huge obstacle for THR to overcome."
~ Barnaby Page, @ECigIntel

https://tobaccoreporter.com/2024/08/01/the-case-for-nicotine/

 

[kristin]

"This study presents clear evidence showing that vaping in addition to smoking can increase your risk for lung cancer."
~ Marisa Bittoni, Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.

No, it really doesn't.

Here is the study link: https://www.gavinpublishers.com/article/view/vaping-smoking-and-lung-cancer-risk

Researchers compared people who smoked and vaped at the time of their lung cancer diagnosis to people with lung cancer who smoked but didn't vape; people with lung cancer who neither smoked nor vaped, and people without cancer who smoked and/or vaped.

A quick review shows that they did not:
- Determine whether or not the person vaped at all before being diagnosed with cancer.
- Determine how long each person vaped before being diagnosed with cancer.
- Determine how often, how much or what the person vaped in addition to smoking.
- Compare cancer rates for people who both smoked and vaped with people who had quit smoking and just vaped.
- Compare cancer rates for people who both smoked and vaped with people who had never smoked and only ever vaped.
- Adjust for people who smoked more than 1 pack of cigarettes per day.
- Have "consistent information on duration of smoking cessation or the levels of continued cigarette smoking among those who reported vaping."

Therefore, they cannot establish that it was the vaping that increased the risk of cancer. It could be that those people smoked more heavily than those who didn't vape and just so happened to have started vaping as a means to quit just before their diagnosis.

The researchers are missing way too much information to conclude that vaping was the cause of the increased risk.

Smoking, vaping called a deadly combination for lung cancer risk - UPI.com

Adobe Stock

www.upi.com

 

[kristin]

CALL TO ACTION: NEBRASKA
UPDATE

There was already a committee meeting on July 31st, so please contact your lawmakers ASAP!

Vapor products are currently taxed at a rate of just 5¢ per milliliter for products with less than 3 mL of liquid, and wholesalers pay only 10% of the purchase price for products containing over 3 mL of liquid. LB 1 would raise the tax on ALL vapor products to 30% of the wholesale cost. To put this in perspective, a 3 mL vape that once cost a consumer just 15¢ in tax could now have a wholesale tax of $3 or more added onto the purchase price!

TAKE ACTION: https://casaa.org/call-to-action/nebraska-stop-a-tax-hike-on-vaping/

 

[kristin]

Sorry folks - I didn't notice until just now that I was posting news updates in the Call to Action thread!

 

[kristin]

MICHIGAN: CALL TO ACTION UPDATE

A raft of anti-vaping bills aiming to reduce everyone’s access to these life-saving products, from a flavor ban and tax hikes to repealing state preemption of local tobacco retailer laws, are expected to be "electronically reproduced" on October 15th!

TAKE ACTION:

https://casaa.org/call-to-action/michigan-stop-a-raft-of-anti-vaping-legislation/

 

[kristin]

CALL TO ACTION: KANSAS CITY, MO
The Kansas City Neighborhood Planning and Development Committee will meet on:
Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 1:30 PM
to discuss and likely advance an ordinance that would ban the sale of all flavored nicotine and tobacco products. This includes vaping, nicotine pouches, and other smoke-free products that are helping millions of people move away from cigarettes!

TAKE ACTION NOW: https://casaa.org/call-to-action/kansas-city-mo-stop-a-flavor-ban/

 

[kristin]

URGENT CALL TO ACTION

The Kansas City, MO committee voted to advance an ordinance that would ban the sale of ALL flavored nicotine and tobacco products. The measure is now heading to a full city council meeting TODAY!

Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, 3:00 PM
26th Floor, Council Chamber
Residents can join remotely via ZOOM

TAKE ACTION NOW: https://casaa.org/call-to-action/kansas-city-mo-stop-a-flavor-ban/

 

[kristin]

CASAA assists eCigaretteIntelligence with their annual U.S. survey of adults who vape by helping develop survey questions that aid #vaping advocacy efforts. As we do every year, CASAA is asking our members to participate in this year’s survey!

Please click here: USA - Vape Consumer Survey 2024

 

[kristin]

New proposal to ban flavored tobacco in the works in Denver!

New proposal to ban flavored tobacco in the works in Denver

 

[kristin]

CALL TO ACTION: Belchertown, MA
The Board of Health is expected to meet TOMORROW Wednesday, November 6, to consider passing a so-called “Nicotine Free Generation” (NFG) law that would ban sales to anyone born on or after January 1, 2004. The board is also considering a rule that would restrict sales of nicotine pouches to adult-only stores.

TAKE ACTION: https://casaa.org/call-to-action/ma-belchertown-stop-creeping-prohibition/