The Hill article on FDA comments

[Berylanna]

Keep filing comments folks, we don't know how many of these are ANTZ vs ours, but we DO know that 50K of those are "premium cigar" comments!

E-cig rules draw more than 70,000 comments | TheHill

I commented on that page: "If this is getting close, the Democratic party might want to reconsider it's pro-Big-tobacco, anti-choice, "War on vaping" -- it will not gain Democrats more than 10 votes nationwide and could cost anywhere between hundreds and thousands of swing-voting vapers and family members, plus at least a few dozen disenchanted Democratic ex-smokers/vapers. Can the Dems afford that? Just for that wonderful echo-chamber sound? And I am (or was, until the War on vaping) a dedicated Democrat for 40 years."

 

[Anjaffm]

excellent comment!

And BS!

But the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA), which represents the e-cigarette industry,

CASAA represents the e-cig CONSUMERS!.
Can those thickskull politicos never get it into their stupid, air-filled heads that consumers have a voice? Consumers have opinions? Consumers are people? Who have something to say? And who form associations?

I am getting so sick and tired of those "astroturf" accusations. Any consumer who has an opinion (that differs from the crap and nonsense that the media feeds us) is automatically assumed to be an industry shill. CASAA is a CONSUMER association, for crying out loud!

I am so sick and tired of this crap.

Rant over

 

[Tache]

excellent comment!

And BS!

CASAA represents the e-cig CONSUMERS!.
Can those thickskull politicos never get it into their stupid, air-filled heads that consumers have a voice? Consumers have opinions? Consumers are people? Who have something to say? And who form associations?

I am getting so sick and tired of those "astroturf" accusations. Any consumer who has an opinion (that differs from the crap and nonsense that the media feeds us) is automatically assumed to be an industry shill. CASAA is a CONSUMER association, for crying out loud!

I am so sick and tired of this crap.

Rant over

It looks like the paper took notice. When I read the article the wording was different. it said, "But the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA), which believes e-cigarettes are a healthy alternative to traditional cigarettes, says that “there is ample reason to believe the net public health effects (of the rule) will be negative.”"

 

[XJ-linux]

excellent comment!

And BS!

CASAA represents the e-cig CONSUMERS!.
Can those thickskull politicos never get it into their stupid, air-filled heads that consumers have a voice? Consumers have opinions? Consumers are people? Who have something to say? And who form associations?

I am getting so sick and tired of those "astroturf" accusations. Any consumer who has an opinion (that differs from the crap and nonsense that the media feeds us) is automatically assumed to be an industry shill. CASAA is a CONSUMER association, for crying out loud!

I am so sick and tired of this crap.

Rant over

Don't feel too bad. If you support gun rights and belong to the NRA, you are by extension a shill for the ammosexual, white supremacist, gun humping, baby killing, gunsforeveryonenoquestionsasked, TEAhadistpublican, gun industry 1%'ers. It's a binary system: support evil gun industry, or save the children. It's just a convenient way to marginalize entire groups without really addressing any reasons why they should be marginalized. Never compromise with anyone spouting that crap is my advice. It's a sure sign they got nothing but fear on their side.

 

[Jman8]

Title could be fixed to "E-cig Rules Draw More Than 55,000 Comments from Adult Consumers of Premium Cigars"

 

[TLS01]

Title could be fixed to "E-cig Rules Draw More Than 55,000 Comments from Adult Consumers of Premium Cigars"

It looks like the same person over and over again...."As an adult consumer of premium cigars, I am opposed to FDA's attempt to regulate these products..." time and again, some are just worded a little differently. He must really like his stogies.

 

[Anjaffm]

It looks like the paper took notice. When I read the article the wording was different. it said, "But the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA), which believes e-cigarettes are a healthy alternative to traditional cigarettes, says that “there is ample reason to believe the net public health effects (of the rule) will be negative.”"

Excellent!
I noticed yesterday that a person had commented that CASAA is a consumer organization -and I am glad that they fixed their mistake. (Intentional or not... ) - And no, I did not add my rant to that person's comment. He / she had said it very well. - And more people commented on that - well done

 

[rothenbj]

I added my attack on the ?non-profits" and the FDA.

 

[Racehorse]

50K were from the cigar folks? I had commented in another topic that 69K comments represented about 2% of the US populace.

If some of those 69K comments were from abroad, that 2% just became smaller.

But if 50K were from the cigar people, that means only 19K were from vapers? That would bring the % down to less than 1% of the populace. Not exactly enough people to have the politicians and FDA quaking in their boots?

Can somebody present the actual numbers in case I read wrong.....

 

[Anjaffm]

I added my attack on the ?non-profits" and the FDA.

and an excellent comment it is!

 

[XJ-linux]

50K were from the cigar folks? I had commented in another topic that 69K comments represented about 2% of the US populace.

Huh? The US populace is 3,450,000 people? I think you may be off there a bit. 6,372,983 is about 2% of the US populace. 69k would be a tick more than 1% of that 2%, or 0.0002% of the US population. Am I missing something?

 

[Berylanna]

Huh? The US populace is 3,450,000 people? I think you may be off there a bit. 6,372,983 is about 2% of the US populace. 69k would be a tick more than 1% of that 2%, or 0.0002% of the US population. Am I missing something?

Yes. There are studies and figures published long ago and frequently updated that correlate number of responses with how many non-responders agree with them. I don't know where they come from but I know that state and federal legislators' staffs have them and use them. I've seen examples so I'll give a WAG (guess) example here that is wrong but gives the idea:

One petition signature --> 1 person probably agrees
One email --> 10 people probably agree
One phone call --> 100 people probably agree
One in-person visit to a LOCAL office --> 1000 people probably agree
One cross-country trip with hotel to visit an office --> 10,000 people probably agree

 

[Racehorse]

Huh? The US populace is 3,450,000 people? I think you may be off there a bit. 6,372,983 is about 2% of the US populace. 69k would be a tick more than 1% of that 2%, or 0.0002% of the US population. Am I missing something?

Calculator wasn't working, I just did it again and you are correct. So it's even worse then? i.e., approx 69K comments is about 0.0002 of the populace. How many of those 69K were from vapers and not purely cigar smokers?

For comparison, the NRA claims 4.5 million members or 14% of the populace. Plus they have a killer strong lobbying group.

I guess I'm just asking what kind of % would cause politicians to sit up and take notice. 0.0002 doesn't exactly inspire and based on all the threats posted that people are telling their elected officials they won't receive a vote if they don't vote in favor of ecigs, I'm wondering how effective that will be, if indeed the number of people making those threats mirror the number of people who actually bothered to submit comments to the FDA. (thoughtful or otherwise).

Hopefully, the former is much higher than the latter.

Part of figuring out strategy is knowing the exact nature of one's power to influence. I'm just trying to figure out approx where that lies.....

Berylana's stats look valid. Would a comment be considered an "email"? In which case then we can multiply that 69K by 10, then that would give a final figure of about 0.002.

 

[Berylanna]

Berylanna's stats were a WAG which stands for Wild (derriere) Guess. Said numbers came exactly from there. I would expect the actual numbers to be a lot less round and tidy. I don't have time to Google for them but I'd bet money they're out there somewhere.

 

[aikanae1]

There's all kinds of ways they slice and dice the information. As someone mentioned before, it's a guage and it's not about numbers. There is such a thing as "influential" consumer and those are targeted in marketing groups because they inform a wide circle of people. I have a tendency to think most vaping comments are going to fall into that category because many are informed of why regulations are devastating and unique content. Some organizations may hand out more responses but that's no guarentee they know what's involved if they are signing form letters and it's not likely those people are influenctional. There's times when critical mass if enough to make them think twice and your right, we didn't achieve that.

One thing we did acheive is the message that the vaping community isn't going to slink away under a rock like smoking community has been doing for the last 30 years. I think that creates a problem for them.

We do need to increase membership for CASAA.

Calculator wasn't working, I just did it again and you are correct. So it's even worse then? i.e., approx 69K comments is about 0.0002 of the populace. How many of those 69K were from vapers and not purely cigar smokers?

For comparison, the NRA claims 4.5 million members or 14% of the populace. Plus they have a killer strong lobbying group.

I guess I'm just asking what kind of % would cause politicians to sit up and take notice. 0.0002 doesn't exactly inspire and based on all the threats posted that people are telling their elected officials they won't receive a vote if they don't vote in favor of ecigs, I'm wondering how effective that will be, if indeed the number of people making those threats mirror the number of people who actually bothered to submit comments to the FDA. (thoughtful or otherwise).

Hopefully, the former is much higher than the latter.

Part of figuring out strategy is knowing the exact nature of one's power to influence. I'm just trying to figure out approx where that lies.....

Berylana's stats look valid. Would a comment be considered an "email"? In which case then we can multiply that 69K by 10, then that would give a final figure of about 0.002.

 

[aikanae1]

Yes. There are studies and figures published long ago and frequently updated that correlate number of responses with how many non-responders agree with them. I don't know where they come from but I know that state and federal legislators' staffs have them and use them. I've seen examples so I'll give a WAG (guess) example here that is wrong but gives the idea:

One petition signature --> 1 person probably agrees
One email --> 10 people probably agree
One phone call --> 100 people probably agree
One in-person visit to a LOCAL office --> 1000 people probably agree
One cross-country trip with hotel to visit an office --> 10,000 people probably agree

I seen that before too.

 

[aikanae1]

50K were from the cigar folks? I had commented in another topic that 69K comments represented about 2% of the US populace.

If some of those 69K comments were from abroad, that 2% just became smaller.

But if 50K were from the cigar people, that means only 19K were from vapers? That would bring the % down to less than 1% of the populace. Not exactly enough people to have the politicians and FDA quaking in their boots?

Can somebody present the actual numbers in case I read wrong.....

That can't be right. Freedom to Vape claimed 40k comments that were to be stamped in. I've been waiting to hear from them, but haven't had time to seek them out.

 

[pamdis]

That can't be right. Freedom to Vape claimed 40k comments that were to be stamped in. I've been waiting to hear from them, but haven't had time to seek them out.

And they will simply add one comment to the docket stating "Write-In Campaign with 40,000 submissions". So, if there are 81,000 current comments, it will go up to 81,0001 after it is posted.

Since they are all different submissions, and not identical form letters, I would like to see them scan and post all 40,000.

But I'm not getting my hopes up.

 

[dragonpuff]

I don't think it makes sense to compare the docket comments to the entire U.S. population. You still have to take into account the number of the population who are children, the number who are in nursing homes or in long-term hospitalization, the number in prison, etc...

Even as a percentage of people eligible to comment on the docket, we're still looking at a small number if we estimate conservatively and say we got in between 5,000 and 10,000 comments.

Even so, government officials know that most people don't stay on top of legislative issues. It's not like there's a large proportion of people in this country who sit around and read about changes in FDA regulations. Most who heard about the deeming heard through news articles that barely brushed on it, and many of those painted the regulations in the light of "eh, it's probably a good thing, and otherwise to be expected and not much of a big deal." In other words, most people who heard about it thought of it as business as usual, the same way we think of most new laws and regulations coming down the pike. Government officials know this and expect most people to not bat an eyelash about these things. They count on us not being aware of what's really going on.

That said, I think that the sheer number of personal comments from us, via FTV and direct comments to the docket, shows that there is a sizable portion of the population who feels that these rules will significantly impact them personally. That is enough to make them take notice, and I am certain it will affect their decision-making to some degree - we showed them that there are many of us who feel so strongly about this we are willing to put up a fight, and they will have to take that into account. How exactly they respond to it, though, remains to be seen.