Cali’s Proposition 56
California passed Proposition 56 and the vaping industry takes another blow – but will Trump come to the rescue?
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by Dave Cross
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According to The Mercury, “Public health advocates cheered the passage” of this proposition. They report American Lung Association’s Ravi Choudhuri as saying: “California is making massive strides just in a few months. We were always known as the forefront of anti-tobacco states, and now we’re back on that track.”
The vote recorded 63.5% in favour of penalising vapers, just 36.5% wanting to preserve common sense. The Yes movement pushed for the vote under a manifesto of using the money to promote non-smoking and save lives, but the reality is that it was little more than a $0.4 Billion land grab.
Typically, those pushing for an increase in taxation spoke about how “tobacco companies are targeting kids with candy-flavoured electronic cigarettes”. The message funds popular support despite the opposition raising a war chest of $71-million to support a ‘No’ vote, mainly coming from tobacco companies.
Overall, the voting (part of the vote for America’s President) highlighted some interesting opinions in California. West Coast voters also elected to:
- Oppose a 10 cent tax on their plastic shopping bags
- To give $9 billion to two state developers
- To tax fizzy drinks
- To ban large capacity gun magazines
- To allow prison governors more say in when to release prisoners
- To legalise marijuana
- Not to repeal the death penalty
- And, not to force actors to wear contraception in adult films
At a national level, voters rejected California’s choice for President of the United States, opting for Donald Trump. This result has been greeted as a positive step for vaping.
Michael Siegel welcomed the result: “with a Trump presidency, and with Republican control of the Senate, we ironically have a tremendous opportunity to once and for all craft a sensible regulatory strategy for electronic cigarettes and vaping products.”
Motherboard report the American Vaping Association’s Brian Conley saying: “Based off of the information being reported on what he plans on doing with the Environmental Protection Agency, it’s going to be, seemingly, an anti-regulatory administration. So that gives us some hope.”
Such a belief has prompted the creation of a Donald Trump Suggestion Website. American vapers are being encouraged to flood it with suggestions for the new POTUS.
Further details about how the vaping industry is cautiously optimistic about the Trump victory can be found on the ECigIntelligence website.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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