Tag Archives: ACS

This is what anti-THR networking looks like, Part 2

Posted on 1 May 2013 by | 4 Comments

In the previous post, we presented some thoughts on a webcast that was designed to empower (with innuendo, ad hominem attacks, disinformation, and suggested dirty tricks) local “public health” officials and activists to harm the public’s health, specifically by restricting access to e-cigarettes.  Following on that, some additional observations (a random series, followed by the most interesting part of the whole conversation).

As we noted in the previous post, one of the speakers made clear that nothing that local or state governments did could interfere with eventual FDA regulations.  They could impose stronger restrictions than the feds, but there is no way they could weaken them.  This put the lie to the American Cancer Society’s claim that they have been opposing regulations to ban sales of e-cigarettes to minors out of concern that it would interfere with FDA regulation.  Of course, we had already identified that as a lie, nothing that the ACS must know the truth, and went on to surmise their real motives.

All but one of the questions during the question period were about the chiiiiiildren.  Probably almost none of the people watching the webcast were even aware that ACS et al.’s policies are the main reason that children can legally buy e-cigarettes some places in the USA.  (Presumably the insiders who savvy enough to know the real game that the anti-THR people are pursuing has sense enough to not waste time listening to webcasts — score one for them over us on that point.)  Interestingly, however, one of the questions sounded like it came from someone who had just read our posts about ACS.  Maybe the ANTZ are getting smart enough to read things.

Comments that smoking is no worse for you than vaping were rampant.  Of course that is not quite how they phrased it.  They said “we do not know that these are safer than smoking”, but those statements are exactly equivalent.

Someone — I believe it was Jeanne Finberg, California Attorney General’s Office — asked the listeners to start reporting, for purposes of legal action, examples of e-cigarette vendors making cessation claims.  Never mind the stupidity of living in a world where merchants cannot make simple nonspecific true statements about how one consumer product competes with another.  Her examples of “cessation claims” included statements that if you use an e-cigarette you will not smell like smoke, as well as the fact that you can blow vapor rings with them unlike with a nicotine patch.  Um, yeah.  By those standards, ads for pizza are making smoking cessation claims.

Of course, even more bothersome was the mere fact that the state Attorney General’s office was actively campaigning for particular policies.  The claim was that rampant lawbreaking is going on.  And yet no one has taken legal action against e-cigarette vendors — other than workplace safety claims and, interestingly, a few cases (or maybe just one) of failing to enforce minor sales bans — since the FDA lost their attempt to ban e-cigarettes.  I thought it was the job of attorneys general to act against lawbreakers — apparently in California it is to ignore that and to try to make policy.

The only audience question not about the chiiiiildren that the moderator chose to read (i.e., planted) was about what the research priorities on e-cigarettes should be.  A valid question, but not such valid answers.  It was a bit of a muddle as to which of the panelists were talking (there is no transcript of the meeting, of course), but one claimed we needed clinical data about whether e-cigarettes help people quit smoking.  That is the standard “clinical” lie (which shows up in lots of contexts, not just e-cigarettes):  Clinical evidence is great for assessing clinical activity — say, which of two drugs is best for treating a particular cancer — but  completely inappropriate for assessing social phenomena.  We do not judge particular methods of reducing traffic hazards or how consumer confidence affects the housing market by creating an artificial laboratory situation.  Similarly we cannot judge the effectiveness of e-cigarettes that way.  (If the question is, “if you recommend e-cigarettes to enrollees in clinical smoking cessation program, what happens?” then clinical research is useful, but that is a much less important question than what is happening in the real world.)

Another answer was that we need to learn more about dual use because it is “giving people the false impression that they are reducing harm when they are not.”  Of course, if people are substituting e-cigarettes for some of their cigarettes (and especially if they are trending toward even more substitution) they are reducing their risk.  But the phrasing of this response was quite telling.  This and other response included the subtext “we need to do more research in order to find more ways to attack THR”.  This reflects the standard ANTZ relationship to research — the same way a drunk uses a lamppost (for support, not for enlightenment).

Someone actually said, “if we had the answer to these, we would know what policies would be possible.”  Notice the statement was not “we would know if we should pursue these policies” or “if these policies are a good idea” – that is not a question that even occurs to them.

This leads to the one bit of honesty, from two employees of the Tacoma/Pierce County (Washington state) health department, reporting on the blocking of that department’s attempt to restrict e-cigarettes.  They wanted to do it, of course, but their presentation was an honest report with little or no editorializing that they were stopped from doing The Right Thing (though undoubtedly many of the listeners supplied that as their own personal subtext).  The restrictions did not happen, they reported, because the public did not support them, except for the one on sales to minors, which everyone supported — apparently the ACS and friends were too busy elsewhere to jump in on that.

To their enormous credit, the officials did not mimic the games of ANR et al. (mentioned in the previous post) of trying to blame the public’s views on manipulation by evil corporations or evil consumer advocacy groups.  They matter-of-factly stated “we did not have a lot of community support” and moreover that “we do not have evidence-based research to back up our concerns.”   The latter is a borderline case of assuming that if the research were done it would support their policy, but about as good as can be expected.

Indeed, they acknowledged that they faced a challenge, as a public health department, because they could not show that e-cigarettes posed any threat to the public health.  Perhaps, then, they should not have been trying to act in the first place, you might be thinking.  But at least the Board of Health ultimately reached that conclusion and stopped the effort.  The bad news is that even these fairly honest presenters emphasized that they “were left in the lurch” by the lack of support and evidence, rather than suggesting that perhaps the lack of support and evidence means that they should not have been doing this.

Perhaps the worst of the honest messages in their presentation was that they endeavored to “strike a balance”.  Among what or whom, you might ask.  They did not clearly say, but reading between the lines it was a balance between, on one side, the genuine preferences of the real stakeholders, along with those who do not think a public health department should interfere with something that does not hurt public health (and, incidentally, those who realize that e-cigarettes are beneficial for public health), and on the other side the ANTZ busybodies and their anti-THR agenda.

And that is what is so toxic about the entire taxpayer-funded project that we witnessed.  A tiny minority of a few thousand busybody activists with no legitimate stake in the matter are considered (by themselves, anyway, and since they have money and power, that matters) to have a legitimate voice, whereas the similar number of people who comprise the industry are treated as a vague malevolent force and the 1000 times that many people who benefit from e-cigarettes are completely ignored.

 

→ 4 Comments

Posted in Lies

Tagged ,

This is what anti-THR networking looks like (and a bit more on ACS)

Posted on 30 April 2013 by | 18 Comments

Yesterday, the CASAA leadership had the enormous displeasure to listen to a webcast about state and local regulation of e-cigarettes, hosted by the Tobacco Control Network (we listened so you did not have to – you’re welcome).

Actually we almost did not get to listen to it: every one of us was bounced off the call except one of us who registered using a non-CASAA affiliation.  We are assuming that was totally a matter of coincidence and technical difficulty.  We certainly hope it was, because not letting us attend a CDC-sponsored public call would certainly be a no-no.  However, if it was intentional, it would not be out of character for the ANTZ, who consistently try to keep anyone who does not agree with them from even observing their meetings.  Also, the (lack of) ethics of such a move are not much different from using CDC funding to engage in what is basically an effort to lobby for state and local regulation; that is explicitly forbidden by law, but this CDC-funded webcast was definitely doing just that.

The reaction to this by CASAA was kind of interesting in itself.  The one of us (CVP) who has been dealing with ANTZ activism against THR for more than a decade (indeed, for more than a decade before the term “ANTZ” was even coined by CASAA) found it to be rather routine.  Others, who had come to THR only after e-cigarettes enabled them to quit smoking, offered quite a few comments that we will not repeat here (out of concern for the chiiiiildren).  One of the more printable comments was simply “do these people really get paid for this?”  (Answer: yes — your tax dollars at work.)

If we tried to respond to every detail, this broadcast would give us a month worth of Lies posts, so we are just going to hit a few highlights.  As a summary, most of the content, other than a few specific points that we will highlight, was an embarrassing primer about e-cigarettes (most any reader of this blog could have done it better), along with the usual attacks that this is all some industry plot and is all about the advertising.  The ANTZ’s guiding mythology makes it impossible to admit that people use e-cigarettes (or smoke or whatever) because they want to, and thus they have to concoct this crazy (as in: as certifiably out of touch with reality as believing your garden gnomes are talking you) story about how a smattering of e-cigarette ads controls people’s when they make one of their most important life choices.

Since the anti-e-cigarette people are basically just the anti-smoking people with no additional education, they of course used the same old ANTZ playbook:  They talked about the importance years-old ads that ran briefly in such consumer-manipulation powerhouses as Convenience Store News.  They talked trash about specific companies, quite a few of which no longer exist.  Our favorite was their breathless concern about one e-cigarette merchant using women mimicking the old “cigarette girls” to sell e-cigarettes in a casino, which they seemed to think would appeal to young people.  Yes, it appeals to all of those young people who remember cigarette girls from c.1970 and who were in the casino.

The speakers from Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights (whose Orwellian name belies the fact that they were opposing rights for nonsmokers who want to use e-cigarettes instead, and who are really just anti-tobacco/nicotine extremists) took the lead on the ad hominem attack.  We were initially a bit disappointed to not be mentioned, because the first page of that presentation was devoted to business groups and think tanks.  They were obsessed about corporate connections and the e-cigarette industry’s new-found access to lobbying.  They singled out a few organizations, including ALEC (for those who do not know, a networking group that is described as either “pro-business” or “right-wing” depending on who you ask) who is such an important player that they might have penned two pro-THR and pro-e-cigarette missives (though only one comes to mind).  You could tell that what they really wanted to do was to complain that THR must be bad because, politically, people associated with the Republican Party tend to support it, but they probably did not want to threaten their CDC funding quite that aggressively.

(For those who might not know, e-cigarette users and THR supporters are pretty much randomly distributed across other political beliefs and affiliations, though they skew libertarian for obvious reasons.  By contrast, almost all of the attacks on THR in the US come from the “public health” political faction which is almost entirely affiliated with the Democrat Party — and which is starting to erode that party’s support — and thus for this particular issue, support of the public’s interest by politicians comes primarily from Republicans.)

CASAA did appear on the second page of ad hominem attacks, rather annoyingly in the context of RJR’s efforts to promote THR to politicians (something we are no happier about than the ANTZ are).  CASAA was identified as being Bill Godshall and Gregory Conley, though when mentioning those two they failed to acknowledge that it is they, and not the corporate lobbyists that they fixated on, who have done the most to protect e-cigarettes from anti-THR efforts.  Kudos to Greg for getting in their crosshairs; the rest of us are happy to toil in ANTZ anonymity.  Bill, however, works alongside us a lot but is independent of CASAA.  It is truly remarkable that the people who are chosen to be the experts who inform other ANTZ cannot even get that straight.  They are all about ad hominem attacks – because the science and true public opinion are not on their side – but they cannot even figure out who the hominems are.

They described CASAA as “theoretically a consumer advocacy organization”.  Cute, huh.  There was nothing presented to suggest that we are anything but that, of course, since it is an undeniable fact.  But by saying “theoretically”, they were able to insinuate it was not true without actually stating the lie they want to plant in the audience’s mind.  That remark was delivered by Bronson Frick and Cynthia Hallett, who theoretically have never even once hired a hooker for a threesome and then killed her and buried her in the basement.  See how that works?

(Oops.  So much for protecting all those chiiiildren who read this blog.)

The ad hominem attacks and emphasis on advertising really served to illustrate the question-begging circular “logic” that dominates the ANTZ approach.  It goes something like this:

Start with the assumption that e-cigarettes and THR are bad for the world and the public does not really like them.  Based on that, it is apparent that any company, advocacy group, or individual who acts out in support of the products or cause must be bad.  Having established that these people are bad, we will now tell you about their support THR and e-cigarettes.  With all those bad people supporting e-cigarettes and encouraging their use, it is obvious that they are bad for the world and that people only use them because they are being manipulated by bad people.  This proves our original point that e-cigarettes and THR are bad.

From the perspective of this blog, the biggest highlight of the presentation was a remarkable coincidence with the most recent two posts, which were about the American Cancer Society’s efforts to block regulations that would prevent sales of e-cigarettes to minors.  Joelle Lester from the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium informed the audience of what this blog already pointed out to our readers:  No action taken by a state or locality can weaken whatever action FDA or other federal regulators might take about e-cigarettes.  This was not a minor aside; it was pretty much the highlighted point of her talk, that everyone should be pursuing state and local restrictions without hesitation.

Readers will recall that the claim by ACS et al. was that they opposed bans on sales to minors because this would somehow undermine the pending FDA legislation.  We pointed out that this is obviously wrong, and that the ACS decision-makers undoubtedly know it.  Thus, the claim was a transparently false rationalization for hidden motives, which we went on to divine.  The presentation yesterday made it clear that not only is this obvious to anyone with even a casual understanding of US law, but that the group that is effectively the legal department for the US tobacco control industry is actively communicating that information.  Not a very clever rationalization for ACS to hide behind, then.

That is enough for today.  In the next post we will tell you about the highlight of that broadcast, a remarkable bit of honesty from a county health department that tried to restrict e-cigarette use, along with some of the other lowlights.

→ 18 Comments

Posted in Lies

Tagged ,

Why do the American Cancer Society et al. oppose regulations to prevent kids from using e-cigarettes?

Posted on 27 April 2013 by | 7 Comments

by Carl V Phillips

The previous post, which pointed out that the American Cancer Society (and, as noted in a comment and the update, the American Lung Association and American Heart Association) is leading the fight against banning sales of e-cigarettes to minors, has probably generated more attention than any previous entry in this blog.  After spending time writing long analyses of scientific points, it is a bit disappointing that what was basically a transcript of testimony by an ACS representative — with some analysis — got far more attention.  (Oh, that reminds me, I forgot to h/t Julie Woessner for creating that transcript from the recording of the hearing.)

I am kidding about being disappointed (mostly), because I do understand the interest.  People who are supportive of THR — in particular, people’s whose health has been saved by e-cigarettes — naturally wonder about those who are trying to prevent people from using e-cigarettes: what they are doing, and why?  I realize that it must seem like quite the mystery to most readers.  In the previous post I hinted at the motives behind ACS’s testimony, which I will examine in more detail today.

The first thing to realize is that ACS’s effort to block regulations banning the sales of e-cigarettes to minors is a calculated strategy.  ACS is an almost-billion-dollar corporation, and like any such corporation, it is run by shrewd decision-makers who do not take actions like this by accident (big corporations do a lot of dumb things, but they do not do them by accident).  They are not some random activists writing crazy rants or trying to do silly things like ban smoking in movies.  Ms. Susan Roberts, who delivered the testimony in the previous post, may have known the real motives or she may have actually believed what she was saying — she might just be a useful idiot who actually thinks that banning sales to minors in Rhode Island would somehow derail the FDA’s research and regulations.  Either way, you can be sure that those who make decisions at ACS are not so naive.

Once we are confident that a decision was made deliberately by a sensible decision-maker, then it becomes possible to learn from it.  I have no inside information about their motives, but I have devoted a great deal of attention, both formal study and informal time-wasting (you will recall my presumably annoying foray into some details of chess a few days ago), to the question of what you can infer from the observed actions of rational actors.

Rhode Island was not the first time ACS has tried to block a ban on sales of e-cigarettes to minors, so this was not some local employee going rogue.  It is obvious that no one with the skills necessary to be a decision-maker at ACS would believe the vague rationalizations presented in that testimony.  Moreover, if those garbled transparently inaccurate rationalizations were the best they could come up with, it suggests that their real reasons are sufficiently unpalatable that they do not want to even come close to admitting them.

[UPDATE: We just happened to hear, a few days later, a leading ANTZ legal authority confirming that ACS's stated claim -- that a state law could interfere with FDA regulation -- was wrong.  So this is not only obvious to anyone who understands regulation, but the message is being actively disseminated in ANTZ discussion.  This makes it even more implausible that ACS did not know that their rationalization was fiction.]

It is also implausible that ACS wants to ensure minors’ access to e-cigarettes because they believe that kids should be able to employ THR.  There is some merit to that position, though no one (literally no one, to my knowledge) actively supports it.  But we know, despite the fact that e-cigarettes reduce smoking and so reduce smokers’ cancer risk (and improve their lung and heart health), ACS and their allies (who claim to be anti-smoking, pro-lung health, pro-heart health, etc.) discourage THR in all forms, including the use of e-cigarettes.  The reasons for this goal are a complicated story in themselves, which I have addressed at some length previously.

They presumably even more vehemently oppose the use of e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco when they are used for reasons other than THR by long-term smokers.  It is not plausible, as vaguely claimed in the testimony, that they are waiting for further study in case they might change their mind and embrace THR for kids.  Given their active opposition to THR for adults, despite overwhelming evidence of its merits, it is impossible to imagine any study result that would cause that change of heart about THR for kids.  Thus it is impossible to believe that they anticipate such a possibility and so do not want to act.  Besides, if they eventually changed their minds and thought that minors should have access to THR, they know that they could probably get the sales bans reversed.

This really leaves only one apparent explanation that we can think of for the policy of trying to stop states from banning e-cigarette sales to minors:  The American Cancer Society and their allies prefer that more children use e-cigarettes because that would look bad for e-cigarettes.

It is fairly clear that their political faction is trying to bring about a ban or similar crippling restrictions on adult access to e-cigarettes.  But they and other ANTZ cannot have failed to notice that their goals are not shared by normal people (the vast majority who believe that public policies should support freedom, happiness, health, etc.).  When state or local proposals to restrict adult access to e-cigarettes are considered, we are able to mobilize people — most of whom have quit smoking by using e-cigarettes — to explain why this is a bad idea.  Almost every single time when the decision-makers are legislators or other representatives of the people, they hear this, understand its merits, and do not implement the restrictions.

Despite this general opposition to ACS et al.’s goal, they have a chance to achieve it if they can claim that banning or severely restricting availability is needed to protect the chiiiiiildren from this scourge.  But right now few minors are using e-cigarettes, and for most of them it is a passing lark.  If there are minor bans, then furthermore it can be pointed out that (a) there are existing laws that could be enforced to further reduce underage use and (b) those who are using are already violating the law so further regulations are unlikely to change much.  Under those circumstances it is pretty hard to justify severe restrictions on the freedom, happiness, and health of adults to ostensibly protect them.

But if children can legally buy e-cigarettes (and just a few merchants are willing to sell to them, even though most have a policy of refusing to do so even where it is legal) the number of underage users will increase and the arguments about just enforcing existing laws will not apply.  So it would be a reasonable plan to try to maximize the use of e-cigarettes by children in anticipation of using that prevalence as a tool in the ultimate fight for prohibition or semi-prohibition.

It might sound over-the-top to suggest that ACS et al. would sacrifice the children in pursuit of their real goals, but I have not thought of or heard any other explanation for the behavior that has been observed.  Besides, the real brains behind the ACS policy must know that a little dabbling with e-cigarettes does not pose any serious threat to the kids (especially when compared to the illegal products that can easily get and dabble instead).  So even though ACS’s useful idiots do not realize this, the leadership know that any harm from children’s use is quite minor.

This tactic is not particularly unusual; indeed, it is quite common and proven effective.  When you want to solve a problem (to them, the existence of THR products is a problem), but do not have the support to make it happen, it is often effective to intentionally make the problem worse in order to gain more support.  Can’t get the world to care about the oppression of your people?  March in the streets or sit down at lunch counters until you are arrested or battered or shot, and the world will eventually decide that something needs to be done.  Can’t get the complacent peasants to fight back against the occupying force or government that you believe is oppressing them?  Provoke those in power into acts of greater oppression and violence against the people to motivate the resistance.  The world has forgotten that you have been imprisoned without charges at Guantanamo for your entire adult life?  Go on a hunger strike.  Compared to those uses of this tactic, causing more kids to use e-cigarettes is pretty benign.

Those dramatic examples obviously involve greater sacrifice, but notice that in such cases those suffering the sacrifice are also (at least in the eyes of the actors) the ones who are already seriously suffering.  So causing more kids to use e-cigarettes is comparatively harmless, but would be a rather more cold and calculated application of this tactic.

Could I be wrong about my inferences here?  Of course.  But no alternative explanation for ACS’s actions is apparent.  And my analysis does pretty closely match the stated position (pdf) of ACS et al. on indoor smoking bans, of refusing to support “step in the right direction” regulations when they cannot get everything they want.  Of course, the official statement dresses it up nicer (and merely calls for not supporting, rather than actively torpedoing), but the unstated motive is the same:  If you let the world move more toward the state where normal people think that things are basically fine, then you cannot get them to support radical policies as the “only” alternative to the status quo.  This is basically the same as the assessment I reached before someone pointed out that document to me:  Intentionally make things worse (compared to a world where generally-supported regulations have been implemented) to try to manipulate the people into supporting much more radical steps than they would otherwise support.

If ACS (or their allies who have worked to prevent minor sales bans) offer CASAA an alternative explanation for their actions, one that does not include intentionally getting more kids to use e-cigarettes, I will let you know.  They had a chance in the Rhode Island testimony to give a plausible explanation for their position, but they chose to talk around it and make non-credible claims about their motives.  Their allies from Rhode Island have engaged in a Facebook conversation with us, but have said nothing of substance yet.  This blog has a standing offer to let anyone who is indicted here write a guest post to reply, so they could take advantage of that.  I know that the previous post was sent to them, and I am confident this one will be too (hint hint!), so if there is no such reply it will not be because they have a defensible alternative explanation but merely did not realize they needed to explain it.

The random ANTZ in academia and exclusively anti-tobacco and anti-THR organizations can easily get away with socially destructive behavior because they have engineered a situation where they only have each other to answer to.  ACS has a lot of support from other constituents and the general public.  I wonder how those supporters would react if they knew about this?

→ 7 Comments

Posted in truths

Tagged , , , ,

Who leads the fight against banning e-cigarette sales to minors? Guess again: it is the American Cancer Society

Posted on 25 April 2013 by | 19 Comments

by Carl V. Phillips

In the U.S., some state-level regulations to prohibit the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone under 18 years of age (the same age for legal purchases of cigarettes or smokeless tobacco) have been introduced, though not as many as you might expect, with even fewer passing.  This seems kind of odd, since no company or industry group opposes such restrictions (and many actively support them and even enforce them even when not legally required), nor does any consumer advocate.  That is not to say that there is no argument against the restriction — someone could argue that it is better that kids have easier access to e-cigarettes than they do to cigarettes, or that they should be no more regulated than similar products like coffee, “energy” drinks, or nutritional supplements, which kids can buy.  But whatever such arguments could be made, no one is making them.

So who is preventing universal adoption of bans on sales to minors, and what arguments are they making?  The opposition to such restrictions is led by the American Cancer Society and their anti-THR allies.  Yes, you read that right. Someone jumping into this discussion with no knowledge might not find that surprising: “The American Cancer Society opposes sales restrictions on e-cigarettes? Well that makes sense, since they are a great tool for reducing cancer risk.”  But, of course, they do not really care about reducing cancer risk in this case, and they lead the campaigns of regulation and disinformation to prevent adult smokers from switching to e-cigarettes.

What are they up to?  Well, let’s consider the testimony of the ACS representative at the recent hearings in Rhode Island (quoted in its entirety).  The bill under consideration would impose onerous restriction on e-cigarette merchants (not merely prohibiting sales to minors), and thus CASAA and those who share our concerns with preserving adult access to e-cigarettes oppose it.  But the stated focus is preventing children from buying them.

Good afternoon, Chairman.  I’m Susan Roberts.  I am the State Director of Governmental Relations and Advocacy for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.  And again, I want to reiterate what my former colleague [from an allied ANTZ group with a similar position] testified to, that we really appreciate that the chairman has taken a look at protecting our youth here in Rhode Island.

We do have some concerns about this bill, and we also recognize that you realize that this bill has an identity crisis.  It looks like a Trojan horse to us.  I mean, it is coming to us saying that it’s protecting youth, and, in fact, what it’s really doing is circumventing some things we didn’t really get into a little bit today:  FDA regulation of these products.

Um, how is that again?  FDA regulations of FDA-regulated products preempt state law.  There is no way a state law could circumvent FDA regulation of the products.  This is especially true because: (a) There is no FDA regulation right now to circumvent, other than general lab standards and regulation of the food-quality ingredients, nor will there be for quite some time.  (b) It is impossible to imagine that anything in a bill that imposed requirements on retailers and prohibits minors from purchasing — which is all this does — could circumvent anything FDA might ever do, even apart from the preemption issue.

So that is of great concern because right now, FDA is looking at these products to figure out how safe and effective they really are, and we want to wait.

Except that they are not.  They have not even asserted regulatory authority over these products (yet), and FDA itself certainly does not have the capacity to do such research even if they were ready to move.  FDA outsources research, usually to the manufacturers themselves.  You would think that ACS would know that.

It’s essential that we wait until we get guidance from FDA before we even put in any kind of ban for the products for youth.

*cough* Wait, did I mishear that?  The people who want regulators to aggressively act to restrict adult use of THR, based on various speculative claims about what might happen someday, think that a “go slow and wait for more information” is the right approach to restricting children’s access.  Exactly what do they think we might learn that would change our minds about acting.  It is not like there is any chance they would ever reach the conclusion, “based on new guidance, we think that kids should be allowed to buy e-cigarettes”.

And we would ask that you do that and work with the Department of Health when it comes time so that we can make sure that we define those products in the appropriate way, that we capture all of the products to keep those out of the hands of youth.

So, um, the worry is that the definition is not broad enough yet?  So the argument is “because there will be more and different products in the future we should not restrict any products now until we know what they all are”?  Actually that seems like a great idea.  If they were to offer the same argument for adult access, that is.  Maybe we should start quoting them on that:  “The American Cancer Society says that we should wait for further evolution of the e-cigarette market before any regulations are imposed.”

And not only that, since FDA has not had a chance to evaluate these products in full, you know, there’s also great concerns that these are in the hands of adults right now.  I can tell you in the back of the room, there were folks using these vapor products right here in the room, and my chest began to hurt, and my throat was hurting.  And I’m very sensitive to those things, and there were other folks in the room saying the same thing.  So we ask that you wait until FDA actually reviews these.

Ah, so there it is.  Ms. Roberts used her claims of psychosomatic reactions to a few people vaping (and presumably barely exhaling much vapor in order to be discreet) and her projections of her rather unique reactions onto others to try to hide the admission of ACS’s real motives:  We do not like preventing sales to minors because it might interfere with our goal of banning sales to adults.  I will write more about the implications of this tactic in a subsequent post, because it is quite significant.

There’s another thing in here that you had mentioned about youth access, and there’s some penalization of youth for products in here.  That’s no mistake by the industry.  They put that in.  They actually want to see youth penalized and not the retailer penalized for selling those products to youth.  And so it’s a long-term tactic of the industry.  We just want to make you aware of that.

Again, huh?  If they did not like the penalty for the kids themselves — a reasonable position — why did ACS call for rejection of the bill rather than a simple amendment?  Apparently she is trying to imply (lie) that the kids faced punishment while the merchants did not, which is very much not true.  As for the “industry” bogeyman, it is true that this is one of several e-cigarette bills secretly authored by R.J. Reynolds, which CASAA has opposed because they are designed to hurt sales channels (internet, e-cigarette specialty stores) that would compete with RJR’s own e-cigarettes, which would presumably be sold alongside their cigarettes.  But if ACS were honestly interested in supporting the minor sales ban (which is CASAA’s position) they would just try to get rid of the bit they did not like (which is what CASAA has been doing with these bills) rather than trying to scrap the whole thing.  The only apparent explanation is that this is just an excuse for their real goal, blocking the minor sales ban in order to use the lack of such bans as an excuse for prohibition.

And then the Clean Indoor Air, this could actually roll back Clean Indoor Air.  So there are several things in here, circumventing taxes, FDA.

I am just going to assume that passage was a burst of Tourette Syndrome, since it seems like just a bunch of random words that bore no relation to this bill about retail sales practices.

And one of the other things I just wanted to bring up when we talk about FDA.  So imagine for a moment Big Pharma, pharmacy industry, would come in and tell you, “Hey, we’ve got a drug that’s under review by FDA, but we’re asking you as a lawmaker to circumvent that altogether, and you determine what should happen.”  That’s just completely wrong.  FDA was put together by Congress.  They have the authority to do what they need to do to protect your constituency.

Yes, from the steel-trap minds of tobacco control:  Restricting sales to minors of a product that FDA does not regulate is exactly the same as violating federal law by allowing sales of a drug that is currently illegal to sell pending FDA approval.

And I know, Chairman Melo, you’ve done a great job in the past, and we really look forward to working with you in the future to help guide you, and we’ll serve as a resource.  People–you were asking what we’re doing to protect children from these products, we–once FDA gives us that guidance, I can assure you, sir, with you and with all of the others, we’ll work to protect the youth from these products.  So thank you so much.

I have no further questions for the witness.

[UPDATE: Julie Woessner points out that the role of "public health" groups blocking minor sales ban is not exclusive to ACS, but rather American Lung Association and American Heart Association have taken the same position (though perhaps not recently).  See her comment about Illinois in 2010 for interesting details.  I have added ALA and AHA to the tags for this post.]

→ 19 Comments

Posted in Lies

Tagged , ,