She sent out an e-mail with a link to a survey asking:
Please tell Claire what issues you want Congress to focus on in the months ahead (check all that apply):*Continuing to expand job and business opportunities
Holding government accountable by rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse
Protecting consumers
Making the tax code fairer and simpler
Continuing to improve care and services for military veterans
Protecting rural post offices and shoring up the U.S. Postal Service
Preserving Social Security and Medicare
Combatting sexual violence on college and university campuses
Have something else in mind? Let us know here:
My response:
I don't see how anybody could seriously oppose these objectives, as they are merely general propositions. The devil is in the details.
For example, the FDA, purportedly in the interest of consumer protection and public health, has embarked on a plan to regulate electronic cigarettes. This is all based on authority given to it by Congress under the Family Smoking Prevention and tobacco Control Act. However, that Act had absolutely nothing to do with electronic cigarettes, doesn't even mention them, and wasn't enacted with those products in mind. In fact, the statute was enacted and the ensuing regulations were adopted mainly for the purpose of making it virtually impossible for new cigarettes to enter the market. If the FDA has its way, the proposed regulations will stifle innovation, make it virtually impossible for 99% of the existing e-cigarette products to gain approval and will destroy thousands of small businesses that have emerged all over the country. There are at least several dozen of these in the metro KC area alone.
These proposed regulations are based mainly on hypothetical "concerns" and "possibilities" rather than actual scientific data. As more and more studies are done the more these "concerns" are shown to be baseless. Nevertheless, there are a number of persons involved in "tobacco control" and "public health" who still cling to them.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but there are powerful economic forces that will benefit if these regulations go into effect, notably Big tobacco (because most of the competition for their inferior "cig-alike" products, as well as for their conventional cigarettes, will be eliminated) and Big Pharma (because, among other reasons, e-cigarettes compete with their ineffective and unpleasant smoking cessation aids). There are also many organizations, such as the American Cancer Society and American Heart Association, which receive massive funding from Big Pharma. Even though there is absolutely no evidence that e-cigarettes contribute to cause either cancer or heart disease, these organizations have actively supported and lobbied for the draconian regulation of electronic cigarettes. In fact, these organizations should embrace e-cigarettes as a game changing innovation to curb the very diseases they are supposed to be fighting.
I am merely a consumer and have absolutely no economic stake in any of this. My state is a personal one: After all FDA approved methods had failed, I was finally able to quit smoking 3.5 years ago, thanks entirely to advanced electronic cigarettes, more appropriately called "personal vaporizers," not the primitive devices manufactured by Big Tobacco. It would be a large scale tragedy if the millions of current and future smokers were denied the same opportunity.
Congress should amend the FSPTCA to exempt e-cigarettes and enact legislation based on sound science and specifically tailored to address whatever legitimate health and safety issues those products may present.
Thank you for your attention.
Respectfully yours,
Please tell Claire what issues you want Congress to focus on in the months ahead (check all that apply):*Continuing to expand job and business opportunities
Holding government accountable by rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse
Protecting consumers
Making the tax code fairer and simpler
Continuing to improve care and services for military veterans
Protecting rural post offices and shoring up the U.S. Postal Service
Preserving Social Security and Medicare
Combatting sexual violence on college and university campuses
Have something else in mind? Let us know here:
My response:
I don't see how anybody could seriously oppose these objectives, as they are merely general propositions. The devil is in the details.
For example, the FDA, purportedly in the interest of consumer protection and public health, has embarked on a plan to regulate electronic cigarettes. This is all based on authority given to it by Congress under the Family Smoking Prevention and tobacco Control Act. However, that Act had absolutely nothing to do with electronic cigarettes, doesn't even mention them, and wasn't enacted with those products in mind. In fact, the statute was enacted and the ensuing regulations were adopted mainly for the purpose of making it virtually impossible for new cigarettes to enter the market. If the FDA has its way, the proposed regulations will stifle innovation, make it virtually impossible for 99% of the existing e-cigarette products to gain approval and will destroy thousands of small businesses that have emerged all over the country. There are at least several dozen of these in the metro KC area alone.
These proposed regulations are based mainly on hypothetical "concerns" and "possibilities" rather than actual scientific data. As more and more studies are done the more these "concerns" are shown to be baseless. Nevertheless, there are a number of persons involved in "tobacco control" and "public health" who still cling to them.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but there are powerful economic forces that will benefit if these regulations go into effect, notably Big tobacco (because most of the competition for their inferior "cig-alike" products, as well as for their conventional cigarettes, will be eliminated) and Big Pharma (because, among other reasons, e-cigarettes compete with their ineffective and unpleasant smoking cessation aids). There are also many organizations, such as the American Cancer Society and American Heart Association, which receive massive funding from Big Pharma. Even though there is absolutely no evidence that e-cigarettes contribute to cause either cancer or heart disease, these organizations have actively supported and lobbied for the draconian regulation of electronic cigarettes. In fact, these organizations should embrace e-cigarettes as a game changing innovation to curb the very diseases they are supposed to be fighting.
I am merely a consumer and have absolutely no economic stake in any of this. My state is a personal one: After all FDA approved methods had failed, I was finally able to quit smoking 3.5 years ago, thanks entirely to advanced electronic cigarettes, more appropriately called "personal vaporizers," not the primitive devices manufactured by Big Tobacco. It would be a large scale tragedy if the millions of current and future smokers were denied the same opportunity.
Congress should amend the FSPTCA to exempt e-cigarettes and enact legislation based on sound science and specifically tailored to address whatever legitimate health and safety issues those products may present.
Thank you for your attention.
Respectfully yours,
or better, just retire. 
