Defending Our Customer’s Right to Switch

Standing Tall Against Regulatory Abuse and Misinformation

It has become fully apparent that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is on a corrupt mission against the thousands of American companies that make vapor products, effectively outlawing our businesses at the end of an arbitrary and expensive regulatory steeplechase that made little sense and even worse policy. Tragically, the FDA’s decisions have eliminated for our customers the Right to Switch to the single most effective alternative to smoking ever devised and will push millions of Americans back to cigarettes.      

We care deeply about the Right to Switch because so many of our entrepreneurs, manufacturers, retailers, and workers around the country quit by switching themselves. And they in turn have helped countless customers understand the alternatives to combustible cigarettes that can best help them quit.    

Tragically, the FDA, and other federal and state public health agencies, have been on a misguided warpath against our products, erecting obstacles at every turn for people who have turned to vaping to quit smoking. Meanwhile, countless public health experts, especially in the United Kingdom, have reviewed the growing body of evidence showing the benefits of vaping and have concluded that the right to access this critical tool must be maintained if we are ever going to end the scourge of cigarettes. Sadly, these studies and compelling consumer testimonials are being ignored by the FDA and entirely omitted from media coverage surrounding the issue.

The FDA isn’t solely responsible for the roadblocks. At the direction of billionaire funders like Michael Bloomberg, highly misleading activist campaigns use bunk research and retracted studies to deceive the public and strong-arm regulators. Advocacy groups with names like The Truth Initiative or Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids have ironically ignored plainly established facts about how vaping helps people quit smoking or the recent studies that show dramatic declines in youth vaping.

At the same time, the media uncritically parrots and amplifies anti-nicotine fearmongering. Sources that differ with the dominant narrative that prohibition-and-punishment is the only way forward are routinely excluded. Stories of ordinary people who have quit cigarettes by switching to vaping are never told. Instead, skepticism of even the most outlandishly false publicity from activists is never applied and willfully slanted data is habitually trumpeted.

The underhanded strategy to manipulate lawmakers and regulators is already having dire consequences. The FDA’s abject failure to approve vaping products effectively criminalizes thousands of longstanding businesses in communities across the country. Those entrepreneurs now have to junk their inventory, fire their employees, stiff their investors, defer their dreams, and abandon their customers. Meanwhile, the untold number of people who smoke but have yet to discover the potential of vapor products to move them toward a healthier, happier life are left with mediocre-but-approved cessation therapies – the same underperforming therapies that inspired thousands of entrepreneurs to innovate and popularize demonstrably more effective alternatives like vaping.    

So where do we go from here?

We need to start with an honest conversation about the FDA and the crushing harms it is imposing. If regulators truly care about public health, it is vital to acknowledge how more than 10 million Americans are using vapor products to successfully reduce and quit cigarettes – and the countless more who could do the same.

If we want to continue reducing smoking prevalence and the early death and disease attributed to cigarettes, then ideologues and fear profiteers need to step aside. 

The American people have always had a knack for thinking for themselves and a healthy skepticism of any authority that commands them to act against their own self-interest. 

We are a growing coalition of businesses who want to preserve access for our customers to the vaping products that serve as a pathway away from smoking. Many of us used to smoke, so we know first-hand the positive role vaping can play and want to keep this option available for the next person who needs help. It’s also why our association has been working hand in hand with consumer groups to stay aligned and informed about what our consumer stakeholders expect from us.

The American Vapor Manufacturers Association intends to take on this unholy alliance of regulators, activists, and media. When reporters abandon their duty to established journalistic standards, we will point that out publicly and demand accountability. When activists drive distorted narratives, we will expose it. And when regulators overstep their bounds in a way that harms public health, we will fight back.

We encourage you to join us in this pivotal struggle. Our lives and our livelihoods depend on it.