JOINT STATEMENT FROM THE VAPOR TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION & THE FLORIDA SMOKE FREE ASSOCIATION REGARDING FLORIDA GOV. RON DESANTIS’ DECISION CONSIDERATION OF
JOB-KILLING, INDUSTRY-CRUSHING VAPING LEGISLATION

WASHINGTON, D.C. – March 7, 2024 – The following statement is attributable to Tony Abboud, executive director of the Vapor Technology Association (VTA):

“On the way to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk is a job-killing, industry-crushing, and small-business-decimating piece of legislation that would cripple Florida’s vaping industry and remove a critical harm reduction and smoking cessation tool from tens of thousands of Floridian vapers.”

“Florida’s vaping industry generates $1.1 billion in economic impact for the state, and it is unconscionable that Gov. DeSantis is considering and, in fact, advocating for legislation which would eradicate $845.4 million in direct sales, $149.9 million in state tax revenue, and more than 6,200 jobs associated with this critical industry. Small businesses and business owners will be forced to shutter immediately.”

“You are a job-creating, freedom-loving governor who understands the rights of vapers, and you’ve been here before. In 2020, you vetoed a hastily drafted and ill-considered flavored vaping ban bill. The fact that you are now considering this current de facto ban and job-killing bill is a betrayal of those adults in Florida who enjoy flavored vaping products. Even more, your administration has asserted that this will be beneficial to the industry – this is simply not true.”

“This bill is the worst example of big government overreach, and it allows one person, Attorney General Moody, to single-handedly pick winners and losers. Signing this bill will do nothing to advance public safety or public health for Floridians who smoke. As you have noted, removing flavored vapes will only drive former smokers back to cigarettes – all while eliminating a billion-dollar industry in Florida and growing the black market.”

“VTA is calling on Gov. DeSantis to immediately reverse course on this misguided action. Jobs, economic growth, and the individual freedoms of Floridians are on the line. Make no mistake, this legislation would create a system worse than the Biden Administration’s broken and illegal FDA process.”

“Gov. DeSantis: Is this worth ruining your legacy with Florida’s vapers? This community and this industry have a long memory, and we won’t forget.”

Nick Orlando, president of the Florida Smoke Free Association, added:

“I am intimately familiar with the many critical stakeholders in the Florida vaping industry who generate over a billion dollars and thousands of jobs for the state economy. From the beginning, we have been engaged participants in shaping this freedom-loving state’s views on critical harm reducing vapes. This bill undermines the principles which you’ve always stood for as Governor. It is a mistake, and this bill needs to be vetoed.”

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VTA Targets Sen. Chuck Schumer’s Proposed Crackdown on Zyn with Major Cable News Ad Buy Supporting Less Harmful, Tobacco-Free Nicotine Products

Ad warns of undue government intervention on effective smoking-cessation and harm-reduction tools like e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches

WASHINGTON – Feb. 6, 2024 – The Vapor Technology Association (VTA) today announced the launch of a cable news ad buy targeting Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and his proposed federal crackdown on Zyn nicotine pouches. The ad runs this week on FOX News and FOX Business during key programming slots, including “FOX and Friends,” “Kudlow,” and “The Five.”

The ad connects a proposed ban on e-cigarettes with Sen. Schumer’s calls for investigation into Zyn nicotine pouches, a less harmful, tobacco-free nicotine product. The ad also calls out entrenched bureaucrats at the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), led by Brian King, for repeatedly blocking access for millions of Americans to e-cigarettes as harm reduction tools that the science has proven are the most effective product on the market to help people quit smoking cigarettes.

“The FDA is wrong on e-cigarettes. Sen. Schumer is wrong on Zyn. And they’re both wrong on the science,” said Tony Abboud, executive director of VTA. “Rather than give adult smokers broader access to a greater number of lower-risk alternatives, the FDA and CTP are instead working overtime to limit access to less harmful alternatives to traditional cigarettes – including implementing a de facto ban on e-cigarettes.”

The ad states that Schumer’s call for investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and FDA into Zyn amounts to an assault on Americans’ personal freedom to choose lower-risk, tobacco-free nicotine products that overwhelming scientific and medical data demonstrates are effective at helping adults quit smoking.

“Why is the FDA denying access to a wide range of less harmful alternatives to combustible cigarettes that could otherwise be used by millions of adult smokers trying to quit?” continued Abboud. “Cigarettes kill. Rather than even acknowledging the settled science in support of e-cigarettes and other less harmful, tobacco-free nicotine products in recent years, the CTP has instead authorized nearly 900 new cigarettes for Americans’ to smoke, suffer, and die from – but Sen. Schumer thinks it’s Zyn you need to be worried about. The anti-nicotine FDA and congressional establishment has simply lost its bearings on the strategy of harm reduction, which it applies to every public health crisis, yet refuses to apply to the annual crisis of nearly half a million Americans dying from smoking every single year.”

“VTA is running this ad buy because Americans deserve to know that less harmful nicotine products exist that can help adult smokers trying to quit. VTA supports Americans’ freedom to choose,” concluded Abboud.

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About VTA: The Vapor Technology Association is the U.S. industry trade association whose members are dedicated to sound science-based regulation and selling innovative high-quality vapor products that provide adult smokers with a better alternative to combustible cigarettes. VTA represents the industry-leading manufacturers of vapor devices, e-liquids, and flavorings, as well as the distributors and retailers, including hardworking American mom-and-pop brick-and-mortar retail store owners.

Also Read FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products Must Reverse Course to Quickly Reduce Smoking Harms

STATEMENT FROM THE VAPOR TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION IN RESPONSE TO SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER’S CALL FOR FEDERAL CRACKDOWN ON ZYN NICOTINE POUCHES

WASHINGTON – January 26, 2024 – The following statement is attributable to Tony Abboud, executive director of the Vapor Technology Association (VTA):

“On Tuesday, January 23, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate the marketing practices and health effects of Zyn, the nicotine pouch brand.

“The American people have seen this movie before with less harmful e-cigarettes. Congressional leaders yell at unelected bureaucrats at the FDA who scurry to remove products from the market that offend their sensibilities – even though those products are less harmful than traditional cigarettes, and have been proven to help people quit smoking deadly cigarettes altogether. These misguided actions deprive American adults of less harmful, non-combustible, and non-tobacco nicotine products that are a proven alternative to combustible cigarettes and that the largest clinical trial in the U.S. has found to cause them to quit smoking even if they have no intention to quit cigarettes.

“There is already a de-facto ban on e-cigarettes. Sen. Schumer simply wants this ban extended to other products he and the Washington establishment deem undesirable.

“As with e-cigarettes, Sen. Schumer falsely asserted that Zyn products are popular with younger users. Yet, the National Youth Tobacco Survey data demonstrates that only 1.5% of youth have even tried nicotine pouches. When will the federal government stop hiding behind an excuse that has been disproven by their own data? 

“VTA stands with Zyn, and the makers of modern oral nicotine pouches, in the fight against arbitrary and capricious government action. Because cigarettes remain the No. 1 cause of preventable death and disease in the U.S., VTA insists on broad access to a wide variety of non-combustible products to preserve freedom of choice for adults who want to use nicotine – and to provide access to proven harm-reduction and smoking-cessation options essential for saving American lives.”

Media Contact
press@vaportechnology.org

About VTA

The Vapor Technology Association is the U.S. industry trade association whose members are dedicated to sound science-based regulation and selling innovative high-quality vapor products that provide adult smokers with a better alternative to combustible cigarettes. VTA represents the industry-leading manufacturers of vapor devices, e-liquids, and flavorings, as well as the distributors and retailers, including hardworking American mom-and-pop brick-and-mortar retail store owners.

Also Read FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products Must Reverse Course to Quickly Reduce Smoking Harms

STATEMENT FROM THE VAPOR TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION IN RESPONSE TO THE FIFTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS OPINION IN WAGES AND WHITE LION INVESTMENTS, LLC (DBA TRITON DISTRIBUTION) V. U.S. FOOD & DRUG ADMINISTRATION:

The following statement is attributable to Tony Abboud, executive director of the Vapor Technology Association:

“The en banc opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that was released last Wednesday is nothing less than a blistering indictment of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) for its intentional misleading of the U.S. e-cigarette industry and unlawful manipulation of its own pre-market tobacco application (PMTA) regulatory process. To use the language of the court, “Over several years, the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) sent manufacturers of flavored e-cigarette products on a wild goose chase,” in search of an approval that the FDA admitted in court it was never, ever, going to grant.

“The court was so stupefied by the FDA’s bad-faith efforts to reject all flavored e-cigarette products it cited Shakespeare to illustrate the full extent of the FDA’s disingenuity, particularly after the court explained that the plaintiffs in that case provided scientific evidence that e-cigarettes “save lives”. The court also emphasized the dramatic and abrupt “FDA flip-flop” which led to the implementation of what the court called a “de facto ban” on flavored e-cigarette products in the U.S. This was in addition to the voluminous jurisprudence cited by the court laying bare just how egregious the behavior of the FDA administrative state has been towards e-cigarette products and the consumers that use them. As the court stated, “No principle is more important when considering how the unelected administrators of the Fourth Branch of Government treat the American people.”

“The ruling by the Fifth Circuit’s en banc panel makes the recent release of the CTP five-year strategic plan – a case study in bureaucratic posturing – essentially null and void.  Nothing in the strategic plan demonstrates that the FDA acknowledges its past and recurring failings or, to the extent that it does, has any commitment to using its enormous regulatory power to authorize less harmful flavored e-cigarette products to save lives.  Worse, the strategic plan completely failed to address the central criticism of the Reagan-Udall Foundation that the FDA has failed to explain what evidence it demands to authorize e-cigarettes as “appropriate for the protection of public health” or otherwise explain how the agency is even interpreting or applying that legal standard.  And worst of all, the strategic plan reveals that FDA has no plan or intent to speak factually to the American public about the benefits of switching from smoking to vaping at any time in the near future.

“Compared to the diametrically opposite approach taken in England – where the government has authorized more than a million flavored e-cigarette products, is telling smokers to use e-cigarettes to quit smoking, and is giving away e-cigarette starter kits to one million of its smokers as part of its ‘Swap to Stop’ program designed to end smoking by 2030 – the U.S. FDA is locked in an anti-scientific ideologically prohibitionist mentality which will ensure that millions of Americans will continue to suffer from smoking related diseases and die from cigarette smoking every year.

“The Vapor Technology Association renews its call for FDA and specifically CTP to reverse course, follow the law, and restore scientific primacy and integrity to its regulatory process by rapidly reviewing and approving the pending flavored e-cigarette PMTAs in accordance with this latest demand by the Fifth Circuit.”

Media Contact
press@vaportechnology.org

About VTA

The Vapor Technology Association is the U.S. industry trade association whose members are dedicated to sound science-based regulation and selling innovative high-quality vapor products that provide adult smokers with a better alternative to combustible cigarettes. VTA represents the industry-leading manufacturers of vapor devices, e-liquids, and flavorings, as well as the distributors and retailers, including hardworking American mom-and-pop brick-and-mortar retail store owners.

Also Read FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products Must Reverse Course to Quickly Reduce Smoking Harms