I've posted about this elsewhere, but felt it needed it's own thread.
I attended the SFATA meetings this week as the de facto assistant to one of it's members. Although I'm not employed by her in any capacity, she is a good friend of mine and elsewise would have had to go it alone, so I volunteered to go with her. The meetings themselves were extremely interesting, but a couple of things really caught my attention:
First off, congress members and other entities (*cough* FDA *cough*) are of the opinion that we want to continue this "wild west" way of doing things that we've had. They don't realize how well we really do self regulate, and are of the opinion that we definitely need regulation. The problem is, the FDA wants to regulate us using pre-existing rules that don't fit. Whether you agree that we need regulations or not, it's definitely coming. What we need to do is push for our OWN regulations and not to be shoehorned into someone else's, namely Big tobacco. As a consumer, it didn't really occur to me that we could ask for this, that we don't necessarily have to be shunted into already existing regulations. This was a big talking point from SFATA.
Secondly, we were told point blank that making appointments and visiting our reps and or senators was a thousand times more powerful than anything a paid lobbyist could do, and this was said by a paid lobbyist! Lobbyists are simply hired guns and can be easily ignored or brushed off. We, however, are their constituents and they have to pay attention to us. Even if your appointment turns out to be with a staffer, said staffer has to report back to their boss about the meeting, and each meeting is logged in their books.
In the same vein, continue to write your congressmen, whether it be personal notes or form letters. Every time a letter is received by their office, one of their staffers has to sit down and form a reply and that interaction is logged in the books. Summarily, any pattern of interactions on a particular subject will definitely be noticed.
Whichever way you choose to do it, get in contact with your elected officials and tell them that we would welcome regulations as long as they are reasonable for the industry, and not something tailored to someone else.
I attended the SFATA meetings this week as the de facto assistant to one of it's members. Although I'm not employed by her in any capacity, she is a good friend of mine and elsewise would have had to go it alone, so I volunteered to go with her. The meetings themselves were extremely interesting, but a couple of things really caught my attention:
First off, congress members and other entities (*cough* FDA *cough*) are of the opinion that we want to continue this "wild west" way of doing things that we've had. They don't realize how well we really do self regulate, and are of the opinion that we definitely need regulation. The problem is, the FDA wants to regulate us using pre-existing rules that don't fit. Whether you agree that we need regulations or not, it's definitely coming. What we need to do is push for our OWN regulations and not to be shoehorned into someone else's, namely Big tobacco. As a consumer, it didn't really occur to me that we could ask for this, that we don't necessarily have to be shunted into already existing regulations. This was a big talking point from SFATA.
Secondly, we were told point blank that making appointments and visiting our reps and or senators was a thousand times more powerful than anything a paid lobbyist could do, and this was said by a paid lobbyist! Lobbyists are simply hired guns and can be easily ignored or brushed off. We, however, are their constituents and they have to pay attention to us. Even if your appointment turns out to be with a staffer, said staffer has to report back to their boss about the meeting, and each meeting is logged in their books.
In the same vein, continue to write your congressmen, whether it be personal notes or form letters. Every time a letter is received by their office, one of their staffers has to sit down and form a reply and that interaction is logged in the books. Summarily, any pattern of interactions on a particular subject will definitely be noticed.
Whichever way you choose to do it, get in contact with your elected officials and tell them that we would welcome regulations as long as they are reasonable for the industry, and not something tailored to someone else.
