Attention South Carolina residents, you access to vaping products is in danger. Click here to visit CASAA's Call to Action and make your voice heard. 

Attention South Carolina residents, you access to vaping products is in danger. 

Big Tobacco's newest scheme to eliminate the independent vape industry involves passing a series of PMTA Registry Bills at the state level across the nation. Dubbed the Big Tobacco Protection Act. It is being unveiled nationally at the state level and has arrived in South Carolina. 

South Carolina’s state government will enlisted to work as enforcement arm for unelected federal regulators at the tax payers expense, unevenly applying edicts from Washington to deny adult vapers access to the legal products they prefer.

The tobacco-industry lobbyists carefully worded their PMTA Registry scheme so that it bars products released after 2016, using the FDA’s shaky PMTA process as a guideline. Notably, the FDA has not approved the most popular Big Tobacco industry vape pod products.

Click here to visit CASAA's Call to Action and make your voice heard, but please utilize the email in the graphic above to contact the Senate directly as well. 

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.

South Carolina S 994 Vape Ban

A bill (S 994) known to advocates as “PMTA Registry” legislation has been introduced and referred to the Senate Committee on Medical Affairs. 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.

While South Carolina lawmakers claim they are fighting a teen vaping epidemic, that terminology no longer applies. As the FDA's Brian King explains, because teen vaping is down 60 percent and has dropped for four consecutive years. 

If enacted, this law would effectively make the state of South Carolina an enforcement arm of the Food and Drug Administration empowering state authorities to enforce the disastrous federal anti-vaping regulations. 

This would put hundreds of 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 tobacco products. Please take a minute to send an email to your lawmakers urging them to oppose S. 994! 

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. 

rolina is the most recent target. This law would make the state government an enforcement arm for FDA regulators and criminalize business owners.

Act Now to Protect Vaping

We urge you click on the call to action banner above to make your voice heard. 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.  

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.

Consumer Freedom Denied

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 South Carolina 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 South Carolina Vape Sales Ban is to pass.