Missouri vapers will lose access to the products they prefer if a PMTA Registry law is passed. Known as the Big Tobacco Protection Act, Missouri HB 2211 has been introduced and referred to the House Committee on Crime Prevention and Public Safety. 

At the moment there is no hearing scheduled, but we expect that to change and we’ll update this alert as more information becomes available. Click the banner below or click here to make your voice heard. 

If enacted, this law would effectively make the state of Missouri 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, hundreds of workers out of jobs, and thousands of people at risk of returning to smoking, or delaying transition to non-combustible alternatives.

Please take a minute to send an email to your lawmakers urging them to oppose this HB 2211!

FLAVOR BANS INCREASE CIGARETTE SALES

A recent FDA study showed that flavor bans increase cigarette sales. Vapers know this firsthand. It is no accident that the artificial flavors popular with adult vapers the same artificial flavors found in every beverage from kombucha to hard seltzer, plus countless processed foods.

PMTA Registry laws are worded so that the most popular products with adult vapers, specifically those sold at brick and mortar stores, are banned. The criteria is allegedly based on PMTA criteria, but they are worded so that Big Tobacco's own vape pod kits remain on the market. Even though they have also not received approval from the broken FDA system. 

Youth vaping has plunged since 2019 and myriad studies that show vaping outperforms nicotine replacement therapy products have been released. There is a reason why anti-vaping groups choose not to cite data from 2020 to 2023. 

Adult vapers deserve better than a few fauxbacco flavors grudgingly allowed by ill-informed politicians. Access to age-restricted electronic nicotine delivery systems in palatable flavors should be a given. But will soon be taken away unless you demonstrate that your interests are not to be ignored.

PMTA Registry Bills and Inflation

Missouri residents are pretty much universal in their concerns about inflation. PMTA Registry Bills dramatically increase the amount adult vapers pay per 30ml of e-liquid. This is on top of removing the products they prefer and limiting them to tobacco flavored vapes.

Here is a breakdown of how much it costs to vape 30ml of e-liquid from a disposable vape versus one of the Big Tobacco’s prefilled, tobacco-flavored pod kits. The difference is astronomical. And with a monopoly, what is to prevent them from further raising prices? Moreover, their products offer lower margins than bottled e-liquids and disposable vapes, damaging the few small businesses that can survive off those sales.