Legislation (SF 2402 / HF 2677) known to advocates as “PMTA Registry” legislation is moving through the Iowa legislature. HF 2677 was amended in the house and has been attached to SF 2402.

We have updated this alert to focus on the active bill in the Senate.

If enacted, this law would effectively make the state of Iowa an enforcement arm of the Food and Drug Administration empowering state authorities to enforce the disastrous federal anti-vaping regulations. This would put independent vape shops out of business, deny adults access to their preferred vaping products, and provide the tobacco industry with a de facto monopoly on store shelves. 

Please take a minute to send an email to your state senator urging them to oppose SF2402/HF2677!

• House Ways and Means Committee
• Tuesday, March 19, 2024
• 9:00 AM
• RM 102, Sup. Ct. Consult
• Iowa Advocates are encouraged to submit comments to the committee by using the Public Comments form for this hearing. Be sure to include the bill number and your position on the bill. Talking points are below if you need some help with your comments.

Iowa is the same state where AG Thomas Miller promoted a rational approach to vaping akin to the United Kingdom’s Using Vaping to Quit Smoking website rather than the FDA's Bloomberg Funded prohibition.

Now it is the tobacco industry that is using their lobbying power to promote a scheme which will serve as a de facto vape ban.

The Big Tobacco Protection Act will kill the independent vape industry and funnel sales to their own products. Iowa’s state government will be enlisted to work as enforcement arm for federal regulators, unevenly applying edicts from Washington to deny adult vapers access to the legal products they prefer.

The Iowa version of the Big Tobacco Protection Act must be stopped. Click here to make your voice heard. Check out our feature article for more information on the PMTA Registry laws sweeping the nation: The Big Lies of Big Tobacco. 

You can also use CASAA’s legislator lookup to find who represents you and let them know that you vape, you vote, and that adult freedoms and consumer choice should not be stripped away to benefit the lobbyists with the deepest pockets.  

Big Tobacco Protection Act

The tobacco-industry lobbyists carefully worded their Big Tobacco Protection Act Bill, misleadingly labelled a PMTA Registry Bill so it bars products released after 2016, using the FDA’s shaky Premarket Tobacco Authorization process as a guideline.

PMTA Registry laws are already in place in Oklahoma, and Louisiana. CASAA refers to this cookie-cutter and self-serving piece of legislation as the “Protect Big Tobacco Act”. Make no mistake. They are a de facto vape ban.  

When passed, PMTA Registry bills force vape shops to close, decimate the industry, deny adults access to vape products, and leave the tobacco industry with uncontested control of the market.

CRITICISMS OF PMTA REGISTRY BILLS

1. Structured so that the tobacco industry’s vape products remain on market, despite also not having received PMTA authorization, while barring their less expensive competition.
2. Serves as a flavor ban, denying adult vapers the flavors they prefer. An FDA funded study found cigarette sales increase in areas with flavor bans.
3. Bars easy to use disposable vapes, which are ideal for initiates and not coincidentally compete head-to-head with prefilled pod kits made by Big Tobacco.
4. Harms small businesses, vape shops and convenience stores, by removing high-volume and profitable products while leaving lower margin tobacco industry vapes on shelves.
5. Contrary to spirit of consumer choice and entrepreneurship, barring products released after 2016.

Iowans to Pay More and Have Fewer Choices Under Bill

The price difference between independent vape industry products and those made by Big Tobacco is staggering. It costs over $200 to vape 30ml of e-liquid from a Vuse Alto. For Juul users, that cost increases to nearly $350 per 30ml.

A Lost Mary MT15000 Turbo costs a $63 to vape the same amount of e-liquid. The difference for the average user can equal a car lease or student loan payment. 

This table does not even account for the fact that a legally enforced monopoly will provide the tobacco industry with the freedom to raise prices further. What is the worst that can happen? Profitable cigarettes sold in place of vapes?

Under the  Iowa PMTA Registry Bill, all vape products released after 2016 will be barred. This means every popular disposable will be gone, leaving Vuse, Juul and MyBlu with a virtual monopoly. A recent FDA study showed that flavor bans increase cigarette sales.

PMTA Registry Bills Nationwide

Youth vaping rates have fallen every year since 2019, and the odds of a national flavor ban that would only benefit the tobacco industry seem more remote than ever. The FDA's PMTA debacle is under fire as conservatives Senators raise questions about the fairness of the entire process. 

To tilt the playing field decisively in their favor, Big Tobacco has devised state level restrictions based on the FDA’s flawed PMTA system. The only issue is that only a couple of defunct cigalikes have been approved by the FDA. As lobbying at the state level is a negligible expense for the deep-pocketed tobacco industry, these laws are expected to be proposed in every state.

The tobacco-industry lobbyists carefully worded their PMTA Registry scheme so that it bars products released after 2016, as the FDA has not approved the most popular tobacco industry vape pod products either.

With the FDA's shaky PMTA application process as the guideline, these laws essentially convert state governments into an enforcement arm for clueless federal regulators. Adult vapers, and smokers will pay the price for this political maneuvering and thousands of jobs will be destroyed in the process.

Consumer freedom, choice and your pocketbook will take a huge hit if the Iowa Vape Sales Ban is to pass.

The transition of #TobaccoIndustry to so-called 'reduced-risk' products like #ecigs and heated tobacco devices is a deceitful pivot. Despite claims of harm reduction, they remain just as detrimental, if not more so. As scrutiny shifts from smoking harms to the broader impact ... pic.twitter.com/qyfVIwexM8

— GGTC (@TheGGTC) April 10, 2024