If not for 503 eLiquid, Smokeless wouldn't be the company we are today. In honor of 503, we hold a special customer appreciation event on May 3rd to celebrate and give back to our wonderful customers. The event happens at each of our stores and features a grand prize for anyone (*must be 21+ to participate) who books a flight and hits all four Minnesota stores, plus our Folsom, California location within business hours on 5/03/19. We promise it's possible to complete the challenge as we have had multiple winners in past years! We'll get into what the prize is a little later....

Although May 3rd isn't our anniversary, we go harder than Black Friday on 5/03, and 2019 marks our fourth 503 day event! If you've been before, you know customers enjoy everything from food to games, and of course, huge sales! 

Meet Theo from Facebook
If you didn't know, every Friday at 5:03pm on our Facebook page, we do a flash sale on eliquid. Theo, our favorite pup, picks from 3 Smokeless Distro brands and whatever he chooses is 50% off until Midnight that day! Since this year's 503 day falls on a Friday, our weekly What Will Theo Choose game will be held not once, but four times, live in store! To make it even more fun and exciting, Theo will be choosing from promotional prizes that will be awarded to everyone in the store when we go live on Facebook and he makes his choice. Swing through our stores on 5/03 for a chance to meet everyone's favorite furry friend Theo and win limited edition prizes! 

The Tour
Visit every store on 5/03 to maximize your customer experience!  This year we have a special raffle with some huge prizes, soon to be announced. Customers can double their entries by visiting all four Minnesota stores! Our winners will be announced on Monday May 6th. You can click here to see all our store locations!

"But what about that special bonus for visiting all five stores on 503?" We're glad you asked! Customers who make it to all five Smokeless stores in one day unlock $720 of 503 eliquid for just five dollars and three cents! (FDA regulation prohibits us from giving away free eliquid). An adventure and a boat load of eliquid? Sounds amazing!

More news and details to come next week when we fully announce our 5/03 day plans! Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date on all the latest Smokeless news!

Last week we wrote about the city of San Fransisco's proposal for a complete ban on sales of vapor products, and this week we learned that a ban on the sale of flavored products was approved by the Arden Hills city council here in Minnesota. This trend of anti-vapor policies is troubling enough; but its how these laws get passed that's just as concerning as the rules themselves.

For those unfamiliar with the Twin Cities metro area, Arden Hills is an immediate suburb nestled to the north between Minneapolis and St. Paul. The reason this new law is curious is that the town of 10,000 people has no established vape shops in the city. Sure, there are a couple tobacco stores that may sell some hardware or eliquid, but there isn't an active vape shop to gather and share news and information. The same was true when T21 was adopted in St. Louis Park & Edina. Neither of the first cities to raise the age to buy had vape-only shops in town.

Low Resistance

The strategy is simple: Propose anti-vaping legislation in places without store and shop owners who will certainly object, and you're likely to succeed in passing it easily. Then when larger or even capitol cities are asked to adopt the same measures, the smaller cities are used as evidence that the measure is necessary. In some cases, council members have even expressed guilt for not passing measures sooner.

T21 has had a checkered success rate in the state. As of this writing it has still failed in more cities and counties than it has passed. But that's not much of a setback for the public health groups who push these policies. In fact, a patchwork of different laws from city to city strengthens the case to make something law at the state level, overruling local government decisions.

The sad fact is that this strategy of "one domino at a time" has worked, overall. While a statewide ban on indoor use was defeated in the early 2010s, and T21 has been held off thus far; both measures have made a reappearance in the halls of capitol hill. The patchwork argument will certainly be used to support these anti-vaping measures; and vape industry leaders are concerned Arden Hills' flavor ban may be next to get the creeping treatment.

The real question is, do any of these measures actually achieve the goals for which they claim to exist? Flavors are well documented as a major factor in many adult smokers making the switch. Yes, young people enjoy flavors; but so do most people with functioning taste buds. Removing flavor options for vaping is a feel-good action that runs a greater risk of closing an important off-ramp for smokers looking to quit.

The moral panic over youth use of vapor products has been running at a fever pitch since last fall, and the city of San Francisco California seeks to take things to the next level. 

After banning the sale of flavored tobacco products last year, The city seeks to enforce a total ban on any vapor products in the city until the FDA regulation process fully kicks in. This means that residents may be without local and online access to vapes until something, anything, gets the official FDA stamp of approval. 

It is important to note that the city has taken no such action on cigarettes.

The law being proposed to the Board of Supervisors would keep all vapes off the market in San Francisco until they receive marketing approval from the FDA. No vapor manufacturer has yet completed a premarket tobacco application (PMTA) to the FDA, because of the prohibitive cost and the uncertainty that any product could ever be approved. FDA marketing approval requires applicants to prove that their products are “appropriate for the protection of public health.”

“By law, before a new tobacco product goes to market,” City Attorney Dennis Herrera said. “the Food and Drug Administration is supposed to conduct a review to evaluate its impact on public health. Inexplicably, the FDA has failed to do its job when it comes to e-cigarettes. Until the FDA does so, San Francisco has to step up. These products should not be on our shelves until the FDA has reviewed the threat they pose to public health.” Unfortunately, Mr. Herrera's comments ignore the plethora of research on that exact topic. At this late junction, the debate over harm reduction shouldn't be this complicated.

E-cigarettes and other vaping products have been sold in the U.S. since at least 2008 — eight years before the FDA asserted regulatory authority over them, and set a schedule for existing products to go through costly, time consuming, and uncertain outcomes from a “premarket” review. There is rich irony in forcing existing vapor products to retroactively prove their value when known-deadly cigarettes are allowed to remain on the market without challenge. Again, the city is not proposing to ban cigarettes. 

San Francisco has joined New York City and Chicago to demand the FDA summarily enforce all components of the Deeming Rule, and immediately demand PMTA’s from all manufacturers. The three cities are threatening to sue the federal agency if it doesn’t agree to the cities’ demands; something several large tobacco control groups also sued over, that has yet to be decided.

It would seem politicians and public health officials have completely abandoned the goal of reducing the disease and death caused by combustible tobacco. Is another attempted prohibition really going to solve the problems caused by cigarettes? Or are we sacrificing the immense potential of harm reduction for a puritan sense of duty to our youth?

As we enter the Ides of March, much has happened that shifts the landscape of vaping laws and regulations. So much so that the industry is left this week with more questions than answers; both nationally and locally.

National uncertainty

March has been marked with several announcements, a couple of which are major in implication. One proposal that trended was President Trump's budget proposal which calls for federal excise and user fees on the vaping industry. The proposal is far from final, but it lays out a troubling position of raising taxes on the industry and its consumers. 

The biggest and most shocking announcement of all seemed to be the resignation of FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb. The announcement, which happened on March 5th. Gottlieb was seen by the industry as a mostly positive force at the agency. It was Gottlieb's delay of regulation deadlines and his open-mindedness toward harm reduction that won him much favor among businesses and consumers alike. Gottlieb was one of the first and most prominent political figures to actually speak to the benefits of vaping vs. smoking.

His biggest ire was undoubtedly the rise in underage e-cig usage. The FDA released a few reports that showed an upward trend in use by those under the legal age to do so. His legacy will understandably be a mixed record depending on which affected party you ask.

Replacing him for the time being is National Cancer Institute Director Dr. Ned Sharpless. Sharpless has supported Gottlieb's efforts and has praised his work in helping cancer patients throughout his tenure. Sharpless and Gottlieb are both on record as saying the FDA will continue on the path and guidelines set out under the current administration. Industry leaders wonder whether Gottlieb's full-time replacement will share his perspective, that vaping is an effective and important tool in the fight for public health.

These changes have created plenty of uncertainty as to the FDA and the Federal government's position on the future of vaping. This week a new draft guideline was released, detailing the FDA's plan for removing flavors from retail stores; meaning only dedicated vape & smoke shops would be allowed to sample flavors and vape inside the store.

State Law Shakeup

Here in Minnesota, we've had some sort of vaping law, tax, or rule change on the session schedule almost every year; and 2019 is no different. 

Just yesterday, the MN House of Representatives passed HF 349, which, among other things, revises the Clean Indoor Air Act to include vaping; banning it everywhere cigarettes are banned statewide. The bill passed by a vote of 100-25 and now moves to the MN Senate, where it will make its way through various committees on its way to a full floor vote. 

T21 has also come before the state legislature and is expected to be quite a fight. So far in the state, T21 has a success rate of less than 50% at the municipal level. Supporters of raising the age hope to sew together the patchwork of laws and create a uniform rule for nicotine access statewide. 

Regional Reinforcements

Among the big news and personnel changes, Vaping (both consumers AND businesses) have a new ally in the fight: The Midwest Vapor Coalition. Executive Director Cap O'Rourke says:

"This new group was founded by four vapor business entities that committed to ensuring that Minnesota's Vapor businesses have representation at the State Capitol since the beginning of the 2019 session - and will continue to have representation."

MVC was born out of efforts from previous advocacy organizations such as the IVRM and numerous regional retail shops and manufacturers.