Tobacco Free CA Responds To Conspiracy Accusations

First off, before we turn all attention to California, and their awful smear campaign, I’d like to point you to a survey presented by the Pink Lung Brigade that you can find here . This survey will be used to provide information to Washington legislators and also has a convenient link to register for voting. Elected officials often check to find out if their constituents that write to them have registered and/or voted in their respective districts. Not only does voting count, but it continues to count if you wish to have your voice heard by your representatives. I vape I vote is the strongest statement our community can make now and in the future. Also, everyone across the US should be on high alert and watching for any calls to action nearing the end of session in any state. Bills will begin moving very rapidly now, and could only take a few hours to hit floor votes and head to the governors desks.

On Thursday April 16th, Tobacco Free CA made yet another outlandish statement in response to the cries from hundreds of vapers that TFCA and the California Department of Public Health’s smear campaign against electronic cigarettes is a conflict of interest. While not exactly a conspiracy, TFCA stated that not only was their budgetary spending on the campaign “sensationalized” by Americans for Tax Reform, but they in fact do not receive any benefit from tobacco Master Settlement Agreement money as they say the Vaping Militia, CASAA and SFATA have claimed. How relevant these claims of false statements against vaping activist organizations are is uncertain. But, I would highly doubt we will hear much more about it other than denial, as TFCA is making public statements on the matter. And, I personally could not find where any of the listed organizations had made any incorrect statements about the CADPH being supported directly by the MSA payments, but instead generalize about how much the state of California is funded by MSA and excise tobacco taxes. It seems as if TFCA are on their heels and may not be used to playing defense.

Instead of declaring they have no conflict of interest, TFCA lays out the fact that they are directly supported by proposition 99 which instituted a 25 cent per pack of cigarettes tax in 1988. Of this 25 cents, only 20% was designated to fund the fight against the use of tobacco products. What happened to the rest of the tax was left unstated by TFCA.

While TFCA claims that they were planning on a decreasing budget due to declining smoking rates, one has to wonder how much decline they had planned for. If there is even one person who would not have otherwise quit smoking without electronic cigarettes, as many vapers are claiming, that would still represent an increase in the rate of decline of smoking over what had been factored before the unforseen invention of electronic cigarettes.

Moving forward, each organization on either side of the aisle will need to choose their verbiage wisely. And, this is a large reason I’ve mostly avoided the monetary aspect of vaping in my writing. But, those that are not necessarily legally bound to the truth will make for a muddy pasture to walk through for onlookers that aren’t necessarily directly affected or involved in the ecig debate. With media pushing the idea that “if it bleeds it leads” attitude, sensationalism will continue to headline over anything that may promote actual education or informative debate.

One must wonder what would happen if electronic cigarettes were not rolled into the tobacco category when the dust settles. Since the funding was approved for the use of fighting tobacco use, as TFCA stated, could the spending of millions of dollars to attack a non-tobacco product legally be considered a malicious or even illegal misuse of public money?