Petition the administration to recognize e-cigarettes

[tybin]

bump

 

[rothenbj]

It's ALIVE!

5,337

171 To GO! in 14 hrs and 46 Minutes!

 

[tybin]

so they are accepting sigs throughout the twenty seventh huh?

 

[rothenbj]

160 To GO! in 10 hrs and 18 Minutes!

That would give us a 10% plus a lucky seven cushion!

 

[BCB]

I got a visual from "lucky seven cushion" and it involved a poodle skirt a la the 50's. Kinda scary. Well, Halloween's coming up soon. I appreciate the initiative the original poster showed by forging ahead with this idea. Good Work!

 

[tybin]

5,352 last i checked. https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitio...gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

 

[rothenbj]

I just hope there aren't too many unqualified petitioners. I didn't think of the non-US signers until it was brought up just recently. You'd think they would not have been counted in the first place. However, since we're a "global economy", perhaps everyone should count, it's not a freaking election.

 

[BCB]

I wouldn't worry about it. Sad to say, I doubt anyone in power really cares about e-cigs other than to ban them once they realize they might be a threat to current income streams. Not to mention the joy of pandering to the self-righteous. (and protecting sweet and innocent children)

 

[ScottB]

There are a couple of petition responses now up on the We the People site. Worth a look if for nothing more than to establish a comparative reference for if/when we receive ours. I find it interesting that they "re-title" the response to reflect their answer... but there is a link to original petition at the bottom of the page...

 

[Tendril]

Can everyone else view the white house page? I'm running Firefox 7.0.1 on Win7 64-bit and the whitehouse page doesn't show any of the content of the center portion of the page - where the petition should be. All the menus work fine and the footer for the page is there too. If I open the Firefox 'web developer' error console it shows tens of javascript errors. Hmm it looks like it might just be a problem with me blocking their trackers addthis and google-analytics

 

[tybin]

yes, i see it. must be your blocking software

 

[Tendril]

yes, i see it. must be your blocking software

Thanks. Yeah, not blocking software - just a modified windows HOSTS file so I don't load common advertisements and trackers

 

[tybin]

i'm tickled to see folks are still signing

 

[Dark Jester]

Wouldn't count on any sort of decisive response to this guys. I signed a few of the "Legalize and/or Regulate Green Stuff" petitions as well, some of which generated in excess of 30,000 signatures on the site and were the most popular/signed ones on the petition site. The response to those is below. Apparently any normal spelling of Green Stuff is a bad word on the forum Any spot you see ........., it's Green Stuff.

What We Have to Say About Legalizing .........

By Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy

When the President took office, he directed all of his policymakers to develop policies based on science and research, not ideology or politics. So our concern about ......... is based on what the science tells us about the drug's effects.

According to scientists at the National Institutes of Health- the world's largest source of drug abuse research - ......... use is associated with addiction, respiratory disease, and cognitive impairment. We know from an array of treatment admission information and Federal data that ......... use is a significant source for voluntary drug treatment admissions and visits to emergency rooms. Studies also reveal that ......... potency has almost tripled over the past 20 years, raising serious concerns about what this means for public health – especially among young people who use the drug because research shows their brains continue to develop well into their 20's. Simply put, it is not a benign drug.

Like many, we are interested in the potential ......... may have in providing relief to individuals diagnosed with certain serious illnesses. That is why we ardently support ongoing research into determining what components of the ......... plant can be used as medicine. To date, however, neither the FDA nor the Institute of Medicine have found smoked ......... to meet the modern standard for safe or effective medicine for any condition.

As a former police chief, I recognize we are not going to arrest our way out of the problem. We also recognize that legalizing ......... would not provide the answer to any of the health, social, youth education, criminal justice, and community quality of life challenges associated with drug use.

That is why the President's National Drug Control Strategy is balanced and comprehensive, emphasizing prevention and treatment while at the same time supporting innovative law enforcement efforts that protect public safety and disrupt the supply of drugs entering our communities. Preventing drug use is the most cost-effective way to reduce drug use and its consequences in America. And, as we've seen in our work through community coalitions across the country, this approach works in making communities healthier and safer. We're also focused on expanding access to drug treatment for addicts. Treatment works. In fact, millions of Americans are in successful recovery for drug and alcoholism today. And through our work with innovative drug courts across the Nation, we are improving our criminal justice system to divert non-violent offenders into treatment.

Our commitment to a balanced approach to drug control is real. This last fiscal year alone, the Federal Government spent over $10 billion on drug education and treatment programs compared to just over $9 billion on drug related law enforcement in the U.S.

Thank you for making your voice heard. I encourage you to take a moment to read about the President's approach to drug control to learn more.

That's a whole lot of text to basically say: We have no plans to change our position. Go Pound Sand.

 

[JustJulie]

Wouldn't count on any sort of decisive response to this guys. I signed a few of the "Legalize and/or Regulate Green Stuff" petitions as well, some of which generated in excess of 30,000 signatures on the site and were the most popular/signed ones on the petition site. The response to those is below. Apparently any normal spelling of Green Stuff is a bad word on the forum Any spot you see ........., it's Green Stuff.



That's a whole lot of text to basically say: We have no plans to change our position. Go Pound Sand.

I think it's fair to say that most of us who signed the petition aren't expecting miracles . . . but I do believe that an e-cigarette petition sends a powerful message that we aren't going away.

 

[sqirl1]

Wouldn't count on any sort of decisive response to this guys. I signed a few of the "Legalize and/or Regulate Green Stuff" petitions as well, some of which generated in excess of 30,000 signatures on the site and were the most popular/signed ones on the petition site. The response to those is below. Apparently any normal spelling of Green Stuff is a bad word on the forum Any spot you see ........., it's Green Stuff.



That's a whole lot of text to basically say: We have no plans to change our position. Go Pound Sand.

the difference is, MJ is already a heated topic in america, nobody really talks about E-cigs. if they say no, we appeal to conservative media outlets to get our message out, with the republicans imminent to take office next year, we need to get them on our side as much as possible, considering that Rush vapes, if we could get the opportunity to have one of our people ( especially Bill, Elaine, etc. ) go toe to toe with the ANTZ a couple of times on the O'Rielly Factor or on Megan Kelly's show, the ANTZ are done for, they don't know how to debate, they just expect everybody to believe their garbage automatically these days, and that's going to be our downfall. of course, we need something to spark the chance to get on shows like this, and this petition could be the way to get that done. The sooner they say no, the sooner we can use it against them, and believe me, Conservative media outlets will eat this crap up.

 

[smokingevolved]

the difference is, MJ is already a heated topic in america, nobody really talks about E-cigs. if they say no, we appeal to conservative media outlets to get our message out, with the republicans imminent to take office next year, we need to get them on our side as much as possible, considering that Rush vapes, if we could get the opportunity to have one of our people ( especially Bill, Elaine, etc. ) go toe to toe with the ANTZ a couple of times on the O'Rielly Factor or on Megan Kelly's show, the ANTZ are done for, they don't know how to debate, they just expect everybody to believe their garbage automatically these days, and that's going to be our downfall. of course, we need something to spark the chance to get on shows like this, and this petition could be the way to get that done. The sooner they say no, the sooner we can use it against them, and believe me, Conservative media outlets will eat this crap up.

Agreed, MJ is much more talked about than e-cigs, and that's why the administration posted their response to it so quickly. But as many of you probably noticed, it was basically a long winded way of saying "Don't expect this to change anytime soon". Well folks, that's government for you.

They've only responded to 8 petitions so far according to my count. And all of the issues they've responded to are big election year red-herrings which are already discussed ad nauseum by the media and policymakers every day. On one hand, it makes sense for them to respond to the big issues first, but it sort of undermines the whole point of the petition system, which is to have the voice of the minority heard. Some of you may have also noticed that they raised the petition threshold to 25,000 signatures in 30 days - fortunately, our petition will still get a response, b/c we got it in early enough. But when you raise the threshold 5-fold you stifle the voices of the people you were supposed to be encouraging to speak up.

I'm glad we got the 5,000 in time, and this will guarantee us a response. But it seems clear that the government is already ruining their own system with overly high thresholds and politicized responses that don't surprise or encourage anybody. If we had waited to get this petition in, I doubt we would have been able to reach 25,000. Not for lack of effort, but simply b/c the issue is not near and dear to most people, as many still know little or nothing about e-cigs. It's great that we got our voice in, but what will happen to other groups like ours who don't have the capability to raise 25,000 signatures? Is their issue any less important than anyone elses?

I guess I'm just down on the government at the moment, what with the Occupy Wall Street movement and all the nonsense that's going on with partisan politics. You don't have to subscribe to any particular side to recognize that government has become ineffective at doing it's job. Whether that means more or less government I can't say, but it's clear that something has gotta change.

Long story short, don't expect anything substantial in terms of a response from the government. But the point is that we WILL get a response, and many more out there will hear our voice.

 

[rothenbj]

Considering the Feds are gearing up to put Cali in line, I wouldn't have expected any other message as a response. I am definitely interested in what kind of message is sent to this petition. It could be filled with FDA drivel or could give a ray of hope.

 

[rothenbj]

"If we had waited to get this petition in, I doubt we would have been able to reach 25,000. Not for lack of effort, but simply b/c the issue is not near and dear to most people, as many still know little or nothing about e-cigs. It's great that we got our voice in, but what will happen to other groups like ours who don't have the capability to raise 25,000 signatures?"

I couldn't agree more, mobilizing 25k votes requires an organized effort which topics like harm reduction just aren't. If we were to put together a more generalized harm reduction petition, it would require some form of organization to have a pre-submission mobilization of different factions and have the signers ready to go. Our method of submitting the petition, then drumming up signers would never get 25k in 30 days.

 

[CJsKee]

Don't know if this has been posted elsewhere, but it's another petition that needs attention. By raising the needed signatures to 25,000 in 30 days, the Whitehouse is basically telling the people to stuff it! Seems I remember they did the same thing in the UK.

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/fb/petition/petition/actually-take-these-petitions-seriously-instead-just-using-them-excuse-pretend-you-are-listening/grQ9mNkN