A Kentucky state senator says she was taken aback by the lack of decorum shown by vaping industry executives in a White House meeting with President Donald Trump.
“There was a lot of passion in that room,” Sen. Julie Raque Adams told The Courier Journal this week. “Frankfort is tamer than that meeting was.”
Politico has described Friday’s meeting, in which industry executives and health advocates argued over a proposed ban on flavored vaping products, as a “shoutfest.”
Adams, a Louisville Republican, said she was unexpectedly invited by the White House two days earlier. The event was described as a roundtable discussion on vaping and teen health that would likely be closed to the press, so e-cigarette industry representatives and health advocates could have a frank conversation, she said.
As one of the leading advocates for smoke-free legislation in Frankfort, Adams jumped at the opportunity. She said she went because Kentucky has one of the highest teen smoking rates in the country and “we have a whole new generation addicted to nicotine.”
Adams said that as she introduced herself in the meeting, she brought up this point as well as the fact that many teens do not know vaping products contain nicotine. The president then suddenly asked if it was OK to allow news media into the room, she said.
Once roughly 50 reporters entered, Trump asked Adams about the situation in Kentucky and what needs to be done.
“I said beyond anything, we have to look at keeping nicotine out of the hands of teens, because research shows that the sooner they’re introduced to nicotine, they’re more susceptible to become addicted to other substances,” Adams said. “It messes with their brain chemistry. So the longer that we can keep nicotine out of the hands of teens, the better it would be for my state.”
Adams said it wasn’t long after this that the meeting took a loud and aggressive turn over the issue of flavored vaping products.
Trump announced in September that he planned to ban all flavored e-cigarettes other than tobacco and menthol, as such flavored products are attracting a growing number of teenagers. However, that move caused a backlash from the industry and adults who use flavored products, causing the administration to hold off.
“That’s when people started getting really loud and talking over each other,” Adams said. “And I was really surprised in that setting that there wasn’t a higher level of respect between people.”
Adams added that Trump appeared to enjoy the “free for all” to see what was driving the arguments of the different groups but cut in several times to “rein them back in.”
“It was interesting to watch (Trump) because he was clearly not disturbed by the back and forth in the banter and the kind of aggressiveness. … Everybody in the room was super passionate about the issue,” Adams said. “And then he would bring everybody back to a more respectful level, and then the passion would get wild again and then he tried to bring it back.”
One of the most interesting points of the discussion to Adams was when Trump quizzed different companies about whether they sell flavored products and why. Juul CEO K.C. Crosthwaite told the president his company no longer sells flavors. When asked if Juul is still making money, Crosthwaite replied that profits have only increased.
“Then the president turns to the other folks and he says, ‘OK, Juul got rid of flavors and they’re still making money. What’s the problem?’” Adams said. “So that seemed to be the biggest bone of contention in the room.”
Adams said that Ryan Nivakoff, the CEO of e-cigarette maker NJOY, and American Vaping Association President Greg Conley were “by far the loudest voices in the room,” strongly pushing back against the arguments of U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who favors the flavor ban.
Nivakoff and Conley said such a ban would put companies and independent vaping shops across the country out of business while taking away an option that many adults have used to quit smoking cigarettes.
However, Adams says those vaping industry officials provided four areas in which they were ready to compromise, including raising the age limit for purchasing tobacco and vaping products to 21, a self-imposed marketing ban, increasing punishment for retailers selling to anyone under 21, and increasing oversight of vape shops by local health officials.
Adams — who says she will sponsor a bill in the upcoming session of the Kentucky General Assembly to raise the age limit on purchasing tobacco products to 21 — said she supports addressing the issue of marketing products to teens and thinks it is worth having a continued conversation about flavored products.
Based on Trump’s comments and his delay on implementing the ban on flavored vape products, Adams assumed the president would no longer follow through on that proposed ban.
The president did see a backlash to his proposal when visited Lexington three weeks ago, as nearly 100 vaping activists protested outside his rally in Rupp Arena, chanting and holding signs reading: “We vape, we vote.”
Adams said she was glad to attend the meeting and to get her perspective in front of the president.
“You know me, I’ll work with conservatives, liberals, moderates,” Adams said. “This issue, I’m just very passionate about it because we save a lot of tax dollars by having a healthy Kentucky.”
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Written by Joe Sonka. Cross-posted from the
Courier-Journal via the Kentucky Press News Service.