While the two presidential candidates for the two major parties in the United States were too busy digging into their opponents' private lives to answer questions from concerned vapers, the office of third candidate Gary Johnson responded to an email from Cloud Chaser CEO Kurt Loeblich, saying that the Libertarian presidential candidate supports vaping .
Throughout the presidential campaign, the 9 million vapers across the country asked questions hoping to get answers about the candidates’ views on vaping, and how they would affect current federal regulations after they were elected, but received no response. However, while Trump and Clinton chose to leave this sizable group of supporters out in the cold, Gary Johnson’s chief of staff, Jim Wallace, made the candidate’s position on the issue clear.
Official answer
“In the first debate, voters heard the two candidates argue about the American economy. What you never heard from either of them was how the economy is currently being choked by excessive regulation.
"Free markets and entrepreneurship should be encouraged." - Gary Johnson
Furthermore, “The vaping industry currently has about 9 million customers, generating about $4 billion a year in annual revenue. With the recent heavy-handed regulations imposed by the FDA, about 12,000 vaping businesses will be put out of business,” and candidate Gary Johnson himself said, “free markets and entrepreneurship should be encouraged. And no one understands this better than the vaping industry.”
Pro-vaping
The party has gone a step further by acknowledging that the FDA’s proposed rules could have a larger-scale adverse impact than we realize. Both former governor Gary Johnson and vice presidential candidate Bill Weld understand the importance of small businesses in the larger economy and the negative impact the bill has had.
“Vaping, a new industry that offers safer alternatives to cigarettes, is about to be crushed by legislation. It makes no sense.”
- Jim Wallace -
While ongoing research in the UK has shown them to be safe alternatives to cigarettes and is being promoted as a smoking cessation aid, in the US health organisations and industry members are still trying to minimise the damage from the FDA's heavy-handed legislation.
A ray of hope
While candidate Gary Johnson has failed to engage in debates about the core issues facing America, vapers should know that Johnson is the only one brave enough to speak out on the issue. The vaping industry is not only a $4 billion industry, it is also an industry that has saved the lives of many former and current smokers.
This article was published on Vapingpost by Diane Caruana and translated by The Vape Club.
