PAVe began when the moms discovered “that a JUUL representative had entered their sons’ high-school through an outside anti-addiction group” (1). The truth was that the educator was not a JUUL employee, as evidenced in the video below, but having a grasp on the facts isn’t PAVe’s strong point.
PAVe Lies to Congress
They pumped up their conference by saying: “PAVe, with the support of CVS Health, convenes experts and thought leaders to highlight the most pressing issues and actionable solutions for the youth vaping epidemic and the fight against Big Tobacco. PAVe's unique position as a communicator and translator of evidence means ‘Clear the Vapor’ will be a highly informative and empowering conference intended for parents, educators, advocates, practitioners, and all who care about protecting our kids from the dangers of flavored e-cigarettes, all menthol and other flavored tobacco products, and the predatory behavior of Big Tobacco.
“We will tackle big-picture topics like long-term health and cessation challenges, federal regulation, menthol flavor as a social-justice issue, and best practices for schools. We will also discuss emerging issues like so-called ‘wellness’ vapes, ‘iced’ flavors, and new nicotine products.”
The event was also sponsored by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the Truth Initiative, and the American Heart Association.
Meredith Berkman stumbled into her new venture as an influencer of the 13 people watching the YouTube stream by repeating the lie about JUUL. “My son was upset about this, many of the kids were already addicted,” she added. This constitutes evidence in the world of Meredith.
Dorian Fuhrman took over to lay out her rules. While there may have been more people watching on the PAVe website, nobody was going to be allowed to offer up a balancing opinion to the guff that followed: “Comments or questions of a disruptive nature will not be tolerated. That participant will be removed.”
Shortly afterwards, the conference comment section on their website was taken down. Within hours of the conference finishing, someone checked the PAVe YouTube channel and removed the comments from there too.
PAVeing The Way To Ignorance
American Vaping Association’s Greg Conley tuned in to the proceedings and swiftly commented: “I am definitely not going to last long.”
Dr Nora Volkow provided the keynote speech. It was one where you didn’t want to be taking a shot of spirits each time she said the words “epidemic” or “EVALI”.
The conference touched on every lie or purposefully distorted truth about vaping and vapers. THC, teen use, nicotine’s effect on developing brains, marketing to children, lung disease and more besides – it is all there in spades.
Then, at the conclusion, Stanton Glantz took time off from being reminded about his sexual indiscretions that resulted in him leaving his job to repeat his tired pack of lies about vaping and heart attacks. He forgot to mention that his work was pulled by the American Heart Association for being a sham.
POTV’s recommendation is that you find something else to do with 7.5 hours of your time, your blood pressure will thank you.
References:
- Parents Against Vaping E-Cigarettes (PAVE) - https://www.parentsagainstvaping.org/
Photo Credit:
Crazy paving image created by Bumper12 and reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Image was cropped to 1000x375 and the PAVE logo added by POTV. The licensor does not endorse POTV or our use.
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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