Michigan Attack on Vaping Must Be Stopped
Michigan Attack on Vaping Must Be Stopped
Please click on the CALL TO ACTION banner below or here. A host of anti-vaping bills have hit the Michigan Senate and will destroy the independent vaping industry. As vape resellers, you are on the front line and have everything to lose.
Despite FDA sponsored research showing the flavor bans increase cigarette sales and falling rates of youth vaping, Michigan has decided now is a great time to hammer a final nail in the coffin of the state's independent vaping industry.
Michigan Senate Bills 647, 648, and 649 would ban the flavors adults prefer, ban popular products, and increase the tax burden on vapers. Flavor bans are the first step to a general vape ban. They kill entrepreneurship and jobs. By increasing cigarette sales at the expense of electronic nicotine delivery systems, it can be easily argued they exact an even steeper toll from adult vapers.
It remains a strange situation when a state like Michigan seems to have a cannabis dispensary at every exit, but adults are being barred from accessing smoke and ash free combustible cigarette alternatives.
Fight for freedom, entrepreneurship, adult choice, rational public health policies, and you livelihood by making your voice heard.
Michigan's Problematic Approach to Vaping
Michigan, specifically Governor Whitmer's executive branch, has a history of not acting in good faith with regards to nicotine vaping.
Their problematic approach to adult vaping continues to this day. Youth vaping rates have fallen every year since 2019, but you would never guess this based on the raft of new Michigan anti-vaping legislation that will cost jobs and funnel vapers back onto tobacco products.
Big Tobacco’s products are lower margin for the reseller and more expensive for the buyer, meaning that even convenience store owners with a robust selection of nicotine products on their shelves have significant skin in the game.
Why Did Michigan Bungle 2019 Lung Illness Outbreak?
In 2019, the state of Michigan's health officials, answering directly to Governor Whitmer, failed for nearly three months to warn residents that black market cannabis carts were causing an outbreak of lung illness (EVALI).
Instead they used the crisis as an opportunity to ban flavored nicotine vapes under emergency provisions. This decision made no sense scientifically and suggests a state that was not acting in good faith.
This fact becomes even more alarming when considering that Michigan did not ban vitamin E acetate from cannabis products until late November.
It is almost like the governor had some vested interest in protecting the cannabis industry, or was afraid to act for some unknowable reason.
The cause of EVALI was known by Labor Day and discussed on other state public health websites such as New York and Utah. Not in Michigan. Instead, cannabis users were wantonly endangered while the reputation of nicotine vapes besmirched.
The CDC investigation into EVALI found that the responsible adulterant, vitamin E acetate, was not found in a single commercially available nicotine product. Granted, the CDC was not eager to clear the name of nicotine vaping and released their findings on the Friday before Christmas 2019.