Dear RMSFA Store Owner and Ally,
Happy summer!
Below are two important updates and requests.
First, the new RMSFA website is up and running.
View the new website at www.RMSFA.org
We need you and each of the 125 RMSFA stores in Colorado to sign up at least 100 new customers with a $4 per month subscription to join the RMSFA.
Feel free to use a 10% discount on a customer’s next purchase to incentivize customers to join the RMSFA.
Second, the anti-vaping forces are preparing to introduce a statewide, vaping flavor piece of legislation in January, 2024 in the Colorado General Assembly.
There are several action items that we can do now to defeat this bill or amend the bill with a 21-age-restricted-store amendment.
1. Sign up more customers to join the RMSFA so that we can grow our influence at the Capital.
In September, 2023, we will provide your store with postcards to distribute to consumers. The postcards will highlight the potential statewide flavor vaping ban and ways that your consumers can get involved and mobilized!
2. Email your State Representative and State Senator with the following message:
To locate your State Legislator, enter your vape shop’s address or your home address at the following website.
Dear Senator or Representative (INSERT LAST NAME):
It has come to our attention that a statewide vaping flavor ban bill could be introduced in the 2024 Colorado General Assembly.
The hundreds of responsible small vape shops, the thousands of vape shop employees, and the hundreds of thousands of responsible adult consumers in Colorado and in your district who use flavored vaping products to quit smoking more harmful cigarettes are strongly opposed to this ill-conceived piece of legislation.
Big Tobacco is the problem. Small responsible vape shops save adult lives.
Big Tobacco has marketed to youth. Small responsible vape shops do not even market.
Big Tobacco sells higher amounts of nicotine. Small responsible vape shops sell half of the amount of nicotine than JUUL and similar products. In fact, one third of small vape shop, adult customers vape zero milligrams of nicotine.
Big Tobacco, such as JUUL, sells small discreet vaping devices that can be easily concealed in an article of clothing. Small responsible vape shops sell large, more expensive, and heavier open tank vape devices to adults that cannot be concealed in clothing.
Please ask your local School Resource Officer (SRO) to show you the confiscated vaping devices – they are all JUUL or similar products – not products produced by small responsible vape shops.
These are just some of the major differences between Big Tobacco and small responsible vape shops.
Colorado vape shop owners are from diverse communities of color and immigrants from every region of the world. They have poured their life savings into small vape shops because they want to save adult lives.
Small vape shops want to be treated like marijuana shops. Regulate, tax, and restrict flavored vaping products to only be sold in age-restricted stores that only allow customers with an ID who are 21 years of age or older to enter the store. A recent Yale University School of Public Health study confirmed that age restricted stores both reduce youth vaping while still allowing responsible adults to use flavored vaping products to stay alive and to quit smoking more harmful cigarettes.
Prohibition does not work. Prohibition creates an underground market that produces harmful products that kill people, spread crime, and target vulnerable people from communities of color.
Thank you for listening to my viewpoints.
There is much more to share in a future conversation – such as how over a dozen domestic and international healthcare organizations have confirmed that vaping is 95% safer than combustible cigarettes because there is no tar or charcoal in a vaping device. Tar and charcoal are two of the 90+ cancerous ingredients in combustible cigarettes that kill 480,000 Americans annually. Tar and charcoal are not ingredients in our vaping products.
I look forward to speaking with you!
Sincerely,
Your First Name
Title (if applicable)
Address
Phone Number & Email Address
3. Contact Joe Miklosi at 303-919-4748 to learn additional ways to get involved. For example, Joe is working with other lobbyists and media consultants to both contact legislators and to schedule media interviews for small vape shop owners, employees, and customers.
RMSFA leadership has also been meeting with Colorado Governor Jared Polis to encourage him to veto or amend any proposed statewide vaping flavor ban bill. To date, the Governor’s comments have been encouraging.
During the last four years, we have defeated two previous statewide flavor ban bills. We can do it again with your support.
Locally, during the last four years, we have also worked with 51 Colorado municipalities and convinced 43 of these local leaders to not ban flavored vaping products.
Talk to you soon!