San Francisco's Vape Juice Flavor Ban
San Francisco's Vape Juice Flavor Ban
San Francisco’s successful No On Prop E campaign is set to seriously damage numerous positive influences vaping has created. Our EightVape community essay contest has highlighted so many benefits of having flavored E-juices and the convenience of online stores. No On Prop E is poised to seriously damage the future possibilities of more success stories like the incredible ones we've received.
No on Prop E is also referred to as the Flavor Ban. Those in support of it have campaigned using terms like “Candy Tobacco” to describe flavored E-Juice. The very intimidating term Candy Tobacco pushed voters to go along with the ban in San Francisco, despite their legalization of Marijuana gummy candies, lollipops, and pastry desserts.
In our EightVape Essay contest on How Vaping Changed Your Life, numerous people listed the flavor options of E-Juice to be the defining factor in why they have made the successful transition from combustible tobacco to vaping. Many could not find satisfaction in tobacco flavored juices because they were not the same as traditional cigarettes and therefore disappointing compared to the real thing. This caused them to go back on their attempts to quit in some cases. However in others who chose to try more exciting flavors, they put down cigarettes for good, some being able to quit completely in as little as two days.
You in the EightVape community who have written in to us documenting the serious health issues you have eradicated through vaping are the exact targets those campaigning for No On Prop E were aiming for. They claim they want to ban flavors because they appeal to children. But by eliminating an important incentive of switching to vaping they will create more traditional analog smokers that will be around children. Parents who struggle to quit will still have kids looking up to them, watching them smoke, with little to no hope of an easy transition to quitting. Children will have to watch parents suffer health issues, smell the harsh tobacco on their bodies, and see the negative effects it has on their happiness and life energy.
No On Prop E would also significantly affect family owned brick and mortar smoke and/or vape stores who make their livings on the sale of E-Juices to legal 21 and over customers. The Truth Initiative who was a huge supporter of this ban, wants to further the ban to eliminate the online sale of E-Liquid and vaping products.
In a few essays we have gotten from those in the EightVape family, they have thanked the website significantly for saving their lives in cases where smoking cigarettes has left them physically unable to drive the long distances to local smoke and/or vape stores to buy vaping products. With the ability to have products sent to their doors, they are making recoveries as they lower their nicotine intake dramatically, and eliminate their tobacco usage entirely.
Eliminating the online sales of E-cigarette products would also result in the loss of thousands of jobs (including mine!) It also would reduce the numerous incredible testimonials put out by E-cigarette users about the positives of vaping, the success stories of quitting cigarettes, and the many lives that have been saved. Pursuing the ban of online E-cigarette sales leaves no place for people struggling to quit to find the help they need.
The elimination of flavored tobacco products is based on fear mongering, online trolls and hackers, and blatant ignorance of all positive feedback on vaping simply because there is “not enough evidence”. We read dozens of evidence, and real life stories every day. And No On Prop E wants to hide that.
Most of the submissions we got have been from people over the age of thirty, forty, or more. We have not received any essay submissions from people who never began smoking. We have zero stories about people who were non-smokers, or “social smokers” who have found vaping to just be fun or a social crutch. Everyone who has picked up vaping because of sweet or “fun sounding” flavors have only done so as a means to incentivize them to continue on a healthier path.
To take away the option of flavored vape juice is to say that these supporters of No On Prop E only want people to quit smoking cold turkey and suffer physical side effects. Or try Chantix and suffer severe mental anguish. Or use a nicotine patch to have nicotine flowing directly into their blood streams for hours at a time. Or chew gum that causes sore throats, indigestion, high blood sugar, nightmares, heartburn, hair loss, and require heavy smokers to chew a piece every hour.
They’d rather people inhale the taste they’re trying to avoid and desensitize themselves to with tobacco flavored E-liquids. It seems like a huge tease. Like, “Ha-ha you’re addicted! Oh you wanna quit? Too bad. You chose this harsh tobacco flavor, and you’re gonna keep it!”
The nonsensical argument of stopping it from appealing to young people is ridiculous, as there has only been a ban on menthol cigarettes… No ban yet on flavored cloves, flavored cigars, cigarillos, flavored rolling papers, there are thousands of theses still on the market. I worked for Davidoff of Geneva, and I sold tons of them every day. And you know why? People who never smoked came up to me and asked for something fun and tasty because they never tried it before.
Now I work at EightVape and not once on our site or any connected social media have we gotten questions or asked for recommendations by non-smokers. Where’s the ban on these Cigar companies making millions on flavored combustible tobacco that non-smokers love to buy on vacation or for parties?
Or how about those candy bubble gum cigarettes? You know those candies that come in a cigarette carton, are long powdery sticks of gum that you can “puff smoke with” and are wrapped up to look like real cigarettes? They’re in almost every candy shop across the nation. My younger cousins think they’re hilarious. Where’s the ban on those? They do way more to appeal to young kids than a bottle of vape juice that you can only use in a mod that definitely costs more than a pack of gum and you need an ID for.
It’d be one thing to push for more active campaigns on the dangers of beginning to smoke, its a counterproductive measure to make it harder and less appealing for adults who want to quit smoking cigarettes. EightVape has witnessed so many success stories that thank vaping for saving their lives, and No On Prop E and The Truth Initiative's quest for flavor bans and online store bans hopes to silence those successes.