Vaping advocacy group United Vapers Alliance held a save the vape rally in Washington DC on Sunday.
Hundreds of vapers turned out protesting at the PMTA deadline and in a bid to influence the upcoming presidential elections.
The key theme of the rally was to urge Trump to completely reform the Pre-Market Tobacco Application [PMTA] process or at least postpone it.
As I’ve written very many times it’s this FDA ran PMTA legislation that will decimate America’s vaping industry and of course affect the country’s 18 million vapers.
From this Thursday – September 9th 2020 – any vape product be it a mod, tank, e-liquid or even vaping merchandise that does not have an FDA approved PMTA submitted, it will be deemed ‘illegal’ and removed from sale.
There’s currently around 4 million vape products on sale in the USA and pretty much 99.999% of those can no longer be sold from Thursday next.
The FDA is planning to release a full list of ‘approved‘ vape products over the coming months.
The key here is that with each PMTA costing up to $460,000 each, many smaller and mid range companies simply cannot afford the lengthy process, will close leaving around 160,000 people without jobs.
I wrote more about the options they face in the article: NO PMTA Extension Says FDA.
Save the Vape Rally – We Vape We Vote
Organizers hoped the save the vape rally will encourgae America’s vapers to remember the phrase ‘we vape we vote‘.
During the rally over 20 vapers addressed the crowd and related personal stories on how vaping had changed or even saved their lives or those of families or friends.
Dimitris Agrafiotis, executive director of the Tennessee Smoke-Free Association, said:
HHS Secretary Alex Azar has pledged PMTA reform, but he failed to deliver.
Now, it is up to President Trump to stop the FDA from destroying 99% of the industry and leaving 160,000 Americans unemployed in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As to if Trump will do this remains unclear.
As far as I’m concerned what is very clear is the Democratic party is strongly against vaping with potential president Joe Biden already pledging to rid the country of all things vape.
On the whole the Republican party appears vaping’s only hope leaving the country’s voters with no real choice in November.
In other words, vote Biden and lose vaping completely – vote Trump and hope he saves the industry…
Crazy world we live in…
Read more about the PMTA process:
More About United Vapors Alliance
The UVA says:
United Vapers Alliance (UVA) educates the public and politicians regarding the benefits of harm reduction via vapor products, and strongly conveys that changes must be made, within the FDA, to provide an economically feasible pathway to market.
Currently, the FDA pathway to market is not obtainable for small and medium size manufacturers.
The only entities that can afford the FDA pathway to market is Big Tobacco, while more than 11,000 family owned vapor businesses will shut their doors.
Left unchallenged, 99% of the vapor products, will exit the market in September 2020.
UVA does this via social media, public events and grassroots activism.
For more information about UVA, please visit unitedvapersalliance.org and @AllianceVapers on Twitter and @UnitedAllianceVapers on Facebook.
