Dear Colorado Vaping Store Owner and Ally,
Hello friends! Just a quick update. House Bill 1064 - the statewide vaping flavor ban bill - has not yet been scheduled for debate in the Health and Insurance committee in the State House of Representatives.
My colleagues and I who lobby at the State Capital have been meeting with many State Representatives. Some of the Representatives are open to the idea of adding an "Age Restricted Amendment" to HB 1064 so that your stores can continue to sell flavored vaping products. Other Representatives are very much opposed to the Age Restricted Amendment. We need your help now more than ever to influence the State Representatives.
We hired an Organizer to contact the 50 vaping stores in Colorado that are not yet members of the Rocky Mountain Smoke Free Alliance (RMSFA) and to contact the dozens of vaping distribution companies so they can join the RMSFA too. This will increase our political strength.
Keep asking your store employees and customers to sign the www.Change.org petition at: https://chng.it/DKKhgSZsrG
We need to collect 10,000 signatures!
Please keep calling and emailing the Colorado State Representatives and State Senators listed below. Please ask your customers and employees to also email and call the Representatives and Senators listed below. We need to flood their phones and email inboxes with respectful, strong letters and messages voicing our concerns.
Below is also a sample email that you can use. Feel free to edit the letter.
Call me at 303-919-4748 with any questions or concerns. Thanks and keep fighting!
List of Legislators
Colorado State Representative
David Ortiz
303-886-2953
David.Ortiz.house@state.co.us
Colorado State Representative
Brianna Titone
303-866-2962
brianna.titone.house@state.co.us
Colorado State Representative
Kyle Mullica
303-866-2931
kyle.mullica.house@state.co.us
Colorado State Representative
Jennifer Bacon
303-866-2909
jennifer.bacon.house@state.co.us
Colorado State Representative
Susan Lontine
303-866-2966
susan.lontine.house@state.co.us
Colorado State Representative
Mark Baisley
303-866-2935
mark.baisley.house@state.co.us
Colorado State Representative
Chris Kennedy
303-866-2951
chris.kennedy.house@state.co.us
Colorado State Representative
Karen McCormick
303-866-2780
karen.mccormick.house@state.co.us
Colorado State Representative
Patrick Neville
303-866-2948
patrick.neville.house@state.co.us
Colorado State Representative
Emily Sirota
303-866-2910
emily.sirota.house@state.co.us
Colorado State Representative
Matt Soper
303-866-2583
matt.soper.house@state.co.us
Colorado State Representative
Dave Williams
303-866-5525
dave.williams.house@state.co.us
Colorado State Senate
Kevin Priola
303-866-4855
kpriola@gmail.com
Colorado State Senate
Rhonda Fields
303-866-4879
rhonda.fields.senate@state.co.us
Sample Email
Dear Representative Last Name:
Thank you for your service to the people of Colorado. I am contacting you today about HB 1064, the statewide, vaping flavor ban legislation.
I would like to schedule a time to speak with you in-person or by Zoom or phone to discuss the most effective public policy solutions that both reduce youth vaping while still allowing responsible adults to use flavored vaping products to quit smoking more harmful cigarettes.
I am a small business owner in the State of Colorado. I will go out of business and be forced to fire my employees if this legislation is not amended. Please consider amending HB 1064 to include an Age Restricted Amendment.
Approximately 96% of my sales are flavored vaping products. I do not sell non-vaping products like the approximate 4,000 convenience stores in Colorado. If you remove 96% of sales from any business, the business will cease to exist.
There are many differences between responsible small vaping stores and JUUL. For example, small vaping stores do not sell JUUL products. Small vaping stores sell 50% less nicotine than JUUL products. Small vaping store vaping products are four times more expensive and four times larger so they cannot be concealed. If you examine confiscated vaping products from any School Resource Officer, the products will be small, discrete, easy-to-conceal JUUL products. Not large, open-tank, vaping products sold in my stores. JUUL's actions have tarnished the approximate 150 responsible, small vaping stores in Colorado who empower adults to quit smoking more harmful cigarettes.
Small vaping stores should be treated similar to marijuana shops. We want to be highly regulated to prevent youth from being able to purchase our products. We support public policy best practices to reduce youth vaping. These public policies include: additional licenses, increased inspections, and stiff fines for any store that sells to a minor. We also support marketing restrictions, requiring ID scanners and track and trace products, and only allowing 21-year-old consumers or older to enter an age restricted store to purchase flavor vaping products.
It is important to note that one, single cigarette contains 7,000 chemicals – at least 93 of which are proven carcinogens. A typical vaping device only contains approximately 12 major ingredients. Vaping products do not contain charcoal or tar – the two main ingredients that kill approximately 480,000 Americans annually. That is why 14, highly respected, domestic and international health care organizations have publicly commented about vaping being a safer alternative than smoking combustible cigarettes.
During the last four years, approximately 4% of stores in Colorado have been fined for selling to minors. These stores are predominantly convenience stores - not age restricted vaping stores.
Next, please consider the negative economic impact of a vaping flavor ban. Overall, the State of Colorado will annually lose between $75 - $100 million dollars of direct taxes and an additional $75 million dollars of annual indirect economic impact. Below is a list of economic contributions of a typical small vaping store:
Employs four to 10 full time employees.
Over 95% of store owners lease their space. Lease contributes to property taxes for the municipality.
Each small, independent vaping store conducts approximately 10,000 – 16,000 transactions annually.
Each small, independent store contributes between $50,000 to $80,000 in annual sales tax and pays approximately $80,000 in annual employer and employee payroll taxes. Small vaping stores also pay other employee taxes, such as FICA.
Next, it is important to note that youth vaping has reduced nearly 30% each year during the last three years according to the CDC and FDA National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS).
For example, in 2020, the National Youth Tobacco Survey reported that there were 2.8 million fewer American youth who used vaping products than in 2019.
The federal government, the State of Colorado, and dozens of Colorado municipalities have passed over 12 common sense laws and regulations (not flavor bans) to reduce youth vaping. The laws are working.
For example, voters of the State of Colorado increased taxes 62% to reduce youth vaping. The State of Colorado created a state licensing and enforcement system for stores to prevent minors from purchasing vaping products. The State of Colorado increased the number of inspections at stores. The State of Colorado raised the age to 21 to purchase vaping products at the federal and state level. The State of Colorado banned new retail vaping stores from existing within 500 feet of schools. The State of Colorado restricted advertising for vaping products. The federal government prohibited flavors in closed, discreet vaping devices.
Flavor bans do not work. Flavor bans make the problem worse. Please consider these negative impacts of a flavor ban:
Flavor bans shutdown responsible small businesses and allow JUUL to dominate the market with high nicotine products. My stores sell half the amount of nicotine as JUUL products. Flavor bans do not solve the youth vaping issue. The CDC & FDA National Youth Tobacco annual surveys conclude that curiosity, peer pressure, and high nicotine motivated youth use - not flavors.
Additionally, flavor bans will motivate consumers will travel across state boundaries to purchase flavored vaping products. An underground market will be created and products will not follow strict manufacturing standards. Consumers will return to more harmful cigarettes. Flavor bans disproportionately target historically disadvantaged populations (ACLU, Drug Policy Alliance).
A 2017 Yale University study concluded that “a ban on flavored e-cigarettes would drive smokers to combustible cigarettes, which have been found to be the more harmful way of getting nicotine.”
San Francisco approved a 2018 ban of the sale of flavored tobacco products — including menthol cigarettes and flavored vape liquids. According to a May, 2021 study from the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH), that law had the opposite effect. Analyses found that, after the ban’s implementation, high school students’ odds of smoking conventional cigarettes doubled in San Francisco’s school district relative to trends in districts without the ban, even when adjusting for individual demographics and other tobacco policies.
Finally, please keep in mind that when the 2009 Tobacco Control Act was signed into law by President Obama, the FDA only envisioned regulating five or six, international tobacco companies - not regulating thousands of independent, small, vaping stores. Small vaping stores were created in 2009 by thousands of adults who unsuccessfully tried quitting smoking from the nicotine patch, the nicotine gum, pharmaceutical drugs, and similar products. For 4.6 million adults in the United States, flavored vaping products are the best option to quit smoking deadly cigarettes.
I look forward to visiting with you to implement the most common sense, effective, vaping public policies that both reduce youth vaping and allow adults to use flavored vaping products to stay alive and to quit smoking cigarettes.
Please call me on my cell to ask any questions.
Thank you!
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