Rendez-vous #20 with Alex Clark
Alex is CEO of CASAA
Can you please start by introducing yourself, telling us why and when you started vaping, how your journey evolved and your role in CASAA, the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association?
Alex Clark: My name is Alex Clark and I quit smoking by accident in 2013. After attempting to quit smoking with nicotine gum (which I used as a bridge between cigarettes for three years), I felt defeated and resigned myself to the notion that I would remain a smoker until my likely early death.
I was immediately impressed with the vaping experience and over the course of four or five hours made the decision that 1) I liked these vapor things more than smoking, and 2) I could completely replace smoking with vaping. I spent the rest of the weekend researching the products and ended up ordering a starter kit. The only reason I smoked after that weekend of binge-watching YouTube reviews was because I had to wait for my starter kit to arrive in the mail. It’s been over five years since that last cigarette and I still have the mostly empty pack it came in.
In a way, my involvement with CASAA is linked to how I came to decide to try vaping. If I hadn’t seen someone who I knew was a heavy smoker like me using vapor products “in the wild,” I would have gone on thinking that these things were just a gimmick and delayed trying vaping as an alternative. When I discovered that states were already taking steps to regulate vapor products like smoking, I felt like I didn’t have any other choice but to get involved. If I could quit smoking by switching, surely millions more smokers like me should also have the same opportunity to see that vaping is an option.
Q1. CASAA claims more than 200.000 members. That's a lot of people. You don't require any membership fee. How do you operate? With what type of budget? Can you tell us a bit more about who your members are (gender, age, geographic origin, etc)
Alex Clark: Yes, CASAA membership is free. In fact, we count anyone who takes action through any of our calls to action as a member. We made the decision early on to keep membership free because we do not want to create any barriers to joining CASAA and taking full advantage of the information and opportunities for engagement we provide. Of course, all of this does cost money and we accept donations from both individuals and companies.
With regard to our budget, I can confidently say that we run a very lean operation. Being on the side of low-risk tobacco products precludes us from receiving grants from governments or even other organizations committed to reducing the death toll from smoking.
Q2. Your site presents a lot of testimonials, 11,677 as of today. Do you remember a few that particularly touched you?
Alex Clark: It’s not anyone testimonial in particular that strikes me, rather there are themes. For example, one of the most popular statements made in testimonials is some variation of “I want smokers to have the same opportunity I had in switching to a smoke-free product.” I think it demonstrates a tremendous amount of empathy among people who switch for smokers who haven’t quite gotten the message yet. It’s a stark contrast to the years of shaming and blaming campaigns that we’ve been subjected to.
I would also encourage anyone to visit our testimonials site and type “COPD” in the search bar. There are many accounts of people who arrested and/or reversed their COPD by switching to vaping.
Q3. There is a lot of resistance (to say the least) from some public health and tobacco control 'experts' who deny that e-cigs and other alternative nicotine delivery products provide any help to quit smoking. They basically dismiss all personal testimonials as 'anecdotal evidence'. They also claim vaping is a gateway for young people to start smoking and present serious health risks. Therefore they want to make those products hard to access with various policies like age limit of 21, heavy taxes, restrictions to vape in public places. How do you respond to those critics and the policies they want to implement?
Alex Clark: Actually, I believe we’re starting to see the tide turn with regard to opinions about vaping as a means to quit smoking. But the larger problem is the evolving notion that the only value of vaping is as a cessation therapy. In some respects, the policies you’ve listed work toward supporting the narrative that the only acceptable alternatives to smoking are regulated as therapeutic drugs/devices.
From an advocacy perspective, we oppose policies like “Tobacco 21”, extra taxes, place bans, and burdensome licensing requirements because they are coercive and regulate vapor products with no regard for relative risks. Regulation should be proportionate to risk. Instead, we advocate for a harm reduction strategy that empowers people to make informed decisions about low-risk alternatives to risky behaviors like smoking.
Q4. Lately, there seems to be a particular concern about Juul's products, as they seem very popular with young people. Do you have many young people as members? What is your position about young people juuling or using other vape products? Is nicotine going to damage their brains, make them addicted for life?
Alex Clark: The conversation about “addiction” strikes a personal cord for me as I was in treatment for substance use disorder just over 11 years ago. Specifically, I identify as a recovering alcoholic (although that may no longer be the acceptable way to talk about my experience). I don’t believe someone becomes an “addict” for life simply because they use a particular drug or consume alcohol. Instead, I believe a main driver of people continuing to use drugs or alcohol--despite the negative consequences--is a crisis of compassion and education. Simply put, instead of empowering people with information about safer alternatives, we are told to “quit or die” or “just say no.” Failure to comply is regarded as a grave character flaw and we find ourselves banished to the fringes of society.
With regard to JUUL, we are all waiting for updated data regarding youth use. The alleged “explosion in use” occurred between November 2017 and January 2018, which is outside the cutoff for data collected in the PATH or NYTS studies. There is little doubt that well-placed stories in the media earlier in 2018 were timed to take advantage of this knowledge gap. Certainly, there are young people using vapor products, but 1) it’s not nearly as alarming as anti-tobacco campaigners are making it out to be and 2) cigarette smoking among young people continues to decline. Not to mention, use of any tobacco product among young people (which includes vaping) declined in 2017. Furthermore, smoking among adults continues to decline which supports our contention that there is no gateway effect between vaping and smoking.
Q5. What do you see as the priorities for CASAA now? What do you wish to happen?
Alex Clark: One of CASAA’s core objectives is to put a human voice and face to the community of THR consumers. So we are always working to build an army of consumer voices. We need to correct the dishonest narrative that vaping and THR is all about big corporate profits versus public health.
As far as our wish list is concerned, I think we’d like to see more concrete commitment from federal regulators to keep the vapor market accessible to consumers. At the moment, we’re seeing steps toward medicalizing e-cigarettes. This would certainly be a disaster for the industry, but more importantly, the likelihood that a “pharma vape” would rapidly appeal to millions of smokers and satisfy the preferences of current vapers is pretty slim. The main reason vaping is so successful is that we choose to use these products and we enjoy them. We gather as a community and talk about our preferences, offer advice, and support one another in making the switch to vaping. I don’t know if there has ever been an OTC therapeutic drug/device that can claim any of that.
We would also like to see state and local governments slow their roll on enacting stricter regulation of vapor and smoke-free tobacco products.
Thank you very much, Alex, for having taken the time for this rendez-vous.
Nota: the writing of this rendez-vous took place in September 2018 and while the publication was delayed to early 2019 i feel it's content remains completely valuable.
Revisiting the testimonials I found this very recent one that echoes this story published on CNBC. Two among so many, dismissed as "anecdotal evidence".
I smoked for over 45 years. In 2012 my son introduced me to vaping. At first I was vaping then smoking. When I got my first mod with flavors, I stopped completely. In five years now I have not touched a cigarette, ever. I will never go back no matter what. I have grandchildren to live for and vaping has saved my life and insured that I will be here longer for my grandchildren. Without vaping, I would still be smoking my three packs a day. I don't care what anyone says about vaping, it has literally saved my life and I am so grateful to the vape industry for this. Thank you thank you thank you!!!!
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