July 27, 2019
After being grilled by Congressman Elijah Cummings (5 min, worth watching) on why they were promoting an initiative to overturn e-cigarette regulation in San Francisco, including the flavor ban upheld by 68% of SF voters, Juul is intensifying its PR campaign to promote the myth that its initiative would leave the flavor ban intact. On Friday July 26, the day after the hearing, a lawyer for Juul’s campaign wrote the City Attorney and put out a press release (reproduced below) claiming that the Jull initiative did not override the flavor ban for e-cigare
July 20, 2019
Juul’s CEO, their campaign to pass their initiative, and now lawyer Kevin Ryan (financial or other connections to Juul unknown) all claim that their initiative will not undo San Francisco’s ban on flavored e-cigarettes or make it harder to enforce San Francisco’s other laws on e-cigarettes.
In particular, Ryan says, “The ballot initiative does not undo the ban on sales of flavored e-cigarettes. Nowhere in the initiative is the flavor ban even referenced, so it is disheartening for its opponents to make this claim. The flavor ban remains intact, and the initiative would add further regulation to how vaping products are sold. Furthermore, there is no legal way to undo the flavor ban. The California Supreme Court ruled in Lopez vs. Sony Electronics Inc. that a new law cannot repeal a prior law unless the two laws are irreconcilable, which they are not.”
Ryan is correct that the flavor ban is not specifically referenced in Juul’s initiative. Rather, it would be overturned by this this obscure section, buried on page 7 of Juul’s initiative:
July 16, 2019
A friend outside the US sent me this flyer, which PMI is using to promote IQOS (high quality JPEG image):
July 16, 2019
On the CNBC special on vaping that ran on July 15, 2019, Juul CEO Kevin Burns said “I’m sorry” for all the kids who are using his product and repeated the Juul line that it was all an accident that all those kids are buying their products.
Apparently, he forgot all that social media marketing and parties they bought and all the parties theu threw for young adults.
If he was really sorry, Juul would not be spending $1.5 million (and likely more in the future) trying to trick voters into overturning San Francisco’s flavor ban, making it impossible to enforce existing laws like Tobacco 21, and preempting any regulation of e-cigs by the Board of Supervisors. Juul would also not be spending money to overturn Livermore’s similar legislation.
It is important to emphasize is that all the SF (and Livermore) laws say is that Juul needs to submit an application to the FDA that convinces them that allowing the sale of Juul would be good for public health.