I met Larry at an event and had the opportunity to chat with him about his lawsuit. I asked him to provide a write-up for TasteYourJuice to share with all of you. Here you go & thanks for this Larry! Best of luck with the lawsuit… best of luck to us all!
Phil,
Thank you for the opportunity to let me have the attention of your audience. Let me start by saying this; there is no other industry in this country that has propelled itself into its own culture. Even more so, a culture that has multiple layers and multiple genres. The vaping industry could very well serve as an industry role model for how other industries can strive to be as successful as this one.
Many people who do not know me want to know why a politician is standing up for vaping. So let me give you a little history on myself; my political life; and why I am firm on standing up for this industry.
Let me start with who I am. My name is Larry W Faircloth. I am a state representative for West Virginia. I come from a long line of politics as I was first introduced into politics at the age of 9 years old. I remember it crystal clear. Watching Ronald Reagan take his oath of office. I didn’t understand it, not in the least. Until the next day, when I watched my father take his oath of office, where he continued to serve for over 20 years in office. I did not have the normal childhood most of the other kids had growing up. Instead mine was filled with the insistent nature of my father wanting me to learn all the aspects of politics. By the time I was 17, I had already memorized both the United States Constitution and WV State Constitution, memorized the rules of Parliament, Jeffersonian Law, and read the 27,000 pages of congressional code twice.
In 2002, I first entered the political arena…as a campaign strategist and consultant for many candidates. By 2012, I had earned a reputation for being a Political Bull with a 98 percent success rate. At that point, I myself entered the political race. I of course, was not the establishments pick, so i was deemed the under dog of the race. I was outspent 10 to 1, but with my vast experience, I did not let it bother me, and went on to win the race. Shortly after getting in office, I helped form the Liberty Caucus where I was co-chair of the organization ( and am still active and consult with on many deeming issues).
Shortly after taking office however, my health starting turning for the worse. My doctor was intense on my quitting smoking by any means. She suggested nicotine patches and gum. I tried it to no avail. After that, we moved on to the ‘blu’ cigarettes, but they failed as well. The next step was medication. That was the most dangerous move to me to that point. I truly inherited the signs of depression and thoughts of things that should not have been. I quickly removed myself from that medication for fear of my own safety. I even went to the extent of support groups and being hypnotized once. I gave up on quitting smoking. But in the beginning of 2014, vaping was introduced to me. I shrugged my shoulders, and figured why not give it a try; after all, I tried everything else. To my amazement, from day one of vaping, I have never looked back, and have been smoke free for over 2 years now.
I thought my story was special, but after getting to know the vaping industry, I came to find out that my story was similar to countless others. It quickly dawned on me that this was an industry saving lives. That my friend, is the true reason why I fight for this industry.
In June of 2016, I put together my legal team at the Lane Law Firm (after weeks of consultation), and filed suit against both the FDA and HHS for their unconstitutional actions against the vaping industry with their deeming regs.
The basis of the suits filed all appear to come in from the same approach, however we saw the importance of stressing both the health cost aspects of the deeming regs, as well as the 10th amendment constitutional issues. These issues alone (primarily the 10th Amendment), have been used and won successfully in many cases over the past few years. Most recently, in the last year, the EPA was forced with a permanent injunction on their deeming regs of the US Waters Act, by action of the 10th Amendment issues being cited in the ‘Personal Property Protection Act’ piece of legislation, which was adopted by 27 Attorney Generals for its language and used to stop the actions of the EPA. This legislation was written and pushed by myself, and worked on in development by the attorney that is now representing my lawsuit against the FDA.
My friend, I can not stress the importance to stop the FDA at this point, as it will have positive and impactive benefits trickling down even to the state levels as well. But we must push and win through actions of suit, if we are to set a precedent of an industry that is wanting to continue to grow.
Below is a link to the lawsuit for viewing as well as a link to a donation page to send donations to help fund this fight against the FDA. Since I have started, I have also centered my advocacy into a new site that is in continual growth, at www.Advocate4Vaping.com.
LAWSUIT:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9lOI7FU6F5MSkliVHpmTjZ0Y0E/view?pref=2&pli=1
DONATIONS PAGE:
social.raisethemoney.com/FightTheFDA
Phil,
Thank you again for receiving my email and the opportunity to let me briefly tell you more about myself and my views on why I fight for an industry I truly love.
Larry
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