March 1st 2019
Good afternoon everyone,
The past two days the MVA has spent a lot of time in Annapolis testifying for and against a few bills. The first day we went down our focus was in the house of delegates. We testified in favor of our proposed legislation that would require all vaping products in MD to be marketed responsibly. In other words no cartoon characters, IP infringement, the use of famous people or child appealing characters and would raise the penalties on retailers that sell to minors. This legislation was only met with 1 panel of opposition that had a few legal problems with the bill that they wanted changed.
The second piece of legislation that we testified against was Tobacco 21 which would raise the age to purchase any tobacco product or vape products to 21. We have several problems with this bill. This bill would re-classify all vapor products as tobacco/smoking devices. This bill has nothing in it to help the people caught in the 18-20 rage that would be forced either back into tobacco products because of the age limit and offers no cessation protocols and those people would be forced to quit cold turkey. This bill also put no penalties on minors who possess or re-sell tobacco products and the sole responsibility would be put on the retailer for selling products to minors. When I say sole I mean if you properly train employee to card and not to sell to minors the retailer would pay the fine and suffer the consequences and nothing would happen to the employee. This bill had a lot of questions and sparked some good conversation between us and the committee. We took this as an opportunity to educate the committee on the vast differences between tobacco and vapor products and how they are a boon to public health because they offer extreme harm reduction. There were many in favor of this bill we sat through panel after panel after panel of adults, kids, health officials and doctors who were highly in favor of raising the age to 21. This bill was sponsored by the Chair of the Economic Matters Committee and the chair of the Finance committee in the senate. The Democratic majority has identified this bill as a top priority to pass this session. Our goal in this bill is that if it must pass we would like to have our concerns addressed to change the language in the bill on our previously stated problems with the bill.
The second day in Annapolis was long and our bill was heard last in the Senate. This bill again was Tobacco 21. We were met with strong opposition and hostility. We put out statements made by the American Cancer society and their views about vapor and how it is much less harmful than combustible tobacco and these statements
rattled some of the senators and were refuted as being untrue. We also addressed the language in the bill and argued it would re-classify us as tobacco/smoking when we are clearly different. We tried to address this but the committee did not want to hear us. We were cut off in our testimony and treated unfairly by the senate committee.
We are working towards education of the legislators with our lobby team to correct this misinformation
A big problem we have with our legislators and the general public is misinformation and we would have to launch a big PR campaign to correct this. In correcting this we could greatly help our cause but this will cost money and we need more members to have this money to accomplish this task. I will be drafting a letter to address this. Once I put out this letter I will send it to all MVA members and ask that you send it to every vendor you deal with and every vape shop that isn’t a member. Every single distributor, wholesaler, vape shop and manufacturer that does business in Maryland NEEDS to be a member. This is a fight for our right to do business in MD and to offer a much less harmful product to consumers. Every single aforementioned business need to have skin in the game and it is unethical to have the burden of the fight on a few of our shoulders.
As far a PR goes the MVA is working with the VTA to do a television spot to be aired in Maryland and is going to be shot in Baltimore. This is the statement put out by Tony Abboud, executive director of the VTA:
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED: We’re looking for volunteers who want to participate in a testimonial video shoot in Baltimore on March 22nd and 23rd. Please let us know if you would be interested in telling your story on camera about how flavored vapor helped you quit cigarettes. This is a great opportunity to tell your story and help protect your right to vape!
We will need names, addresses and phone numbers of people willing to participate and these people cannot have a criminal background. If you get them to me I can pass them on to the VTA’s PR team.
I want to thank Elmer Bailley of the Vapor Emporium, Mary Yeager of the Vapor’s Ring, Patrick Carpenter of Vape Chalet, Melissa Hendrix of the Vape Loft, Lisa Barkhorn of B&B’s Vape Café and our lobby team for putting up a good fight in the state house! Thank you to all members for supporting the industry we dearly love. As always thank you to anyone I have forgotten!
Important Dates upcoming: March 6th is lobby day in Annapolis, Also we will be scheduling an MVA meting soon which I will get out to all members.
I hope this newsletter finds you all well and hope to see you all later this March!
Thank You,
Matthew Milby
MVA
As always questions can be emailed to Maryland.vapor.alliance@gmail.com
Copyright © 2024 Maryland Vapor Alliance