I just finished sending Vicki McKenna an outline of our plans - this is the EM I sent her....
Vicki
Hi. I am known on the ECF as Vicks-Vap-oh-yeah, and I am the one nominally planning our event. I am very pleased that you joined the ECF to get me this message...and am thrilled to have you interested.
Our timeline is: May 11th, 10:30 am - 12:30pm We will be on the Capital Steps, vaping, handing out informational flyers, and answering questions about our cause.
We will break for lunch, and be back at 1:30ish. We may or may not decide to do the afternoon session, depending on the reception of the morning session. I do not want to cause undue alarm or make this out to be a hostile gathering...it will be an education/informational gathering, we are trying to get information of a flawed Tobacco Control bill in the right hands before it is voted on and signed into law.
The upcoming Tobacco control bill - H.R. 1256, the Family Smoking and Tobacco Control Act, is the legislation that we oppose in its current form. The bill is scheduled to come up for debate in the Senate (it has already passed in the House) soon.
-The bill was sponsored by Altria - who own Philip Morris, makers of the Marlboro brand of cigarettes. If passed in its current form, the bill would have the following provisions:
1)The FDA cannot outright ban traditional tobacco cigarettes...but they can't say they approve them, either. Cigaratte manufacturers cannot state they are regulated or controled by the FDA (some think this would send the message to citizens that cigarettes are "approved" by the FDA) So, very hush, hush on this - the hill doesn't want the public to know this is going on.....
2)The FDA could do the following with tobacco:
1-control the amount/content of advertising for tobacco sales
2-control the amount of nicotine in a cigarette
3-control any alternate tobacco and/or harm reduction products on the market since 2007.
This means SNUS, chew, dip, snuff, our E-Cigs, and I'm not sure what else would be firmly under the thumb of the FDA, and would be held to pharmacological testing standards to be marketed in the US instead of mirrored against the product they are intended to replace (cigarettes). Bottom line is that with FDA regulation you can kiss any new products bye-bye (unless marketed as an NRT, limited use product) for the next 10 years for long term tests to be completed, at an estimated cost to the manufacturer of 20 million dollars.
3)Here's the real scary part: The FDA, if given control of nicotine, will direct the tobacco companies to reduce the amt of nicotine in their cigarettes, in an attempt to make cigarettes less and less addictive. Clear thinkers can see that if you put less of the addictive substance in a cigarette, yon smokers are going to smoke MORE cigarettes to get their fix....So this bill will make tobacco sales SPIKE (and tax $$ increase, too).
We would ask that our Wisconsin Senators
- oppose this legislation unless/until it is amended to allow the least hazardous smokefree tobacco/nicotine products to remain on the market, and
- to support tobacco harm reduction amendment(s) for smokefree tobacco/nicotine products that are consistent with provisions in the Burr/Hagan bill and the Buyer bill.
Please let me know if there is anything else you need in the way of information from me, and if you will be joining us in either a civilian or news capacity.....just for the record, I would LOVE to have TV coverage of our little event.
I will be working on our formal hand-out tonight, and will post it here and on my blog for review and suggestions on revision....
This is getting bigger and better all the time - I'm so pumped!
An hour, I think I'd barf!
, you're just trying to convince yourself. Two weeks in I completely agreed with him. I LOVED cigarettes. LOVED em. I always said the only thing better than a good steak was the cigarette afterwards. Now I smoke one analog a day to remind me how bad they taste.
