As mentioned last week we lost an OG in the industry and a friend, Brad McNamara.
I fondly remember my visits to and the fun we had at the Juicy Vapor vape events in upstate New York, and the gallons of “Tribute” I vaped over the years.
If you would like to help Brad’s family with the cost of final expenses, you can do so below.

Dearest friends and family members:

We are so moved and thankful to everyone who has joined us with offerings of sympathy and condolences as we mourn the untimely loss of our baby brother, Bradley Knoll McNamara, to a battle with COVID-19. He fought the valiant fight, but ultimately the virus was too much for his body to overcome, and we received the phone call informing us that he was pronounced dead Wednesday morning, 13, January 2021 at approximately 08:09am.

Due to a myriad of factors, most importantly the directives of the CDC as well as pertinent local, state, and federal regulations, there will not be a customary funeral for Brad, and instead the family will announce a Celebration of Life service which will take place in the coming months once it is safe to do so. This will be a time where we can all come together to remember and honor the life of our dear brother, son, father, husband, uncle, best friend, confidant, business associate, neighbor, drinking buddy, and share with each other our fondest memories of him and how he impacted our lives.

Many of you have reached out asking how you can help Brad’s family during this uncertain time. We appreciate your thoughtfulness, and we ask for your continued prayers for his family as they are still battling this Novel Corona Virus themselves. We are also asking for monetary donations to help cover the costs associated with his end-of-life expenses. Brad was always there for anyone when they were in need, so now it’s our turn to be here for his family during this time of devastation as they try to figure out where to go on from here. We have created a few simple avenues where you can easily donate what you can without leaving the safety of your own home. Feel free to visit our Facebook Fundraising page.

To our knowledge, Brad did not have a will in order, nor did he have any other provisions set up to protect his family and his business in the event such an extraordinary event should occur. To further complicate things, he and Stacy were never legally married, leaving Stacy in a very unfortunate and precarious predicament, having no legal claim to most of their mutual assets that were accumulated over the last twenty-something years, give or take. Therefore, anything you might be able to give would be more than appreciated by Stacy as she is still the provider and head of household to both Ryan and Riley, not to mention the six dogs.

Once again, we would like to thank you on behalf of Brad’s family as well as ours for all you have done during this tragedy. We cannot express how grateful we are, and we promise to keep you all in our hearts, our prayers, and our minds as we move on from this. Please keep Brad on your social media outlets as we will be sure to provide details of a Celebration of Life memorial service in the coming months, dependent on how we all come out on the other side of this pandemic.

God bless you all.

With sympathy, affection, and sincere gratitude,

Terri McNamara & Mikey McNamara

No will
No power of atty
Nothing set in place

You can DONATE HERE.

“Advocates and lawmakers in Bridgeport, Connecticut, want the state to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products. Nearby states have already done so. State Senator Mary Daugherty Abrams co-chairs the state Public Health Committee. She sponsored a bill that would protect children across Connecticut from being lured into tobacco use through flavored products. Advocates from Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the Bridgeport NAACP said flavored tobacco products are dangerous to the health of young people and lead to addiction, especially in communities of color.”

BILL TARLING — They continue to use the fabricated “Protect The Children” pretense in order to dupe the public for support. All they are doing is driving people back to cigarettes and smoking in order to keep their tobacco revenue streams flowing.

ARTICLE LINK:  Bridgeport Advocates Push Connecticut For Flavored Tobacco Ban

1. If you are a manufacturer or company offering a new vape product, you can have your product promoted here.
   The placement will consist of a product graphic, information about the product, and a link to your site.  The heading will read “NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT” and give the name of your product.
2. If you are a US based e-liquid company and offer 12mg freebase liquid, please contact me!  I want to review your liquid!

If interested, please contact pbusardo@tasteyourjuice.com

“Speakers at the virtual summit also discussed the current regulations and the future goals and challenges for vaping products. In the 2021 legislative session, advocates are looking to propose raising the minimum legal sale age of tobacco products from 18 to 21. Public health experts also aim to protect the gains achieved in 2019, particularly to defeat the effort to repeal how vapor products are taxed as “other tobacco products” and preserve vaping prevention and control funding. The approximately 200 strategies crafted by the expert speakers and summit participants will form the foundation of an action plan that will be submitted to the Division of Public and Behavioral Health (DPBH) on Feb. 15 and will not include specific goals, but instead, will provide a set of tactics segmented by the five main tracks of the summit, which focused on cannabis prevention, tobacco products, cannabis and vaping regulation, law enforcement, and special populations. The strategies emerged from the Nevada Public Health Cannabis and Vaping Summit, a three-day virtual gathering of research and regulatory experts, policy makers, and others convened by the attorney general’s office and state health officials. After the summit’s action plan is submitted to the DPBH in February, the Legislature and other stakeholders from the event will have an opportunity to act on the recommended strategies.”

ARTICLE LINK:  Confronting a rise in youth vaping, experts strategize on actions for prevention

Here’s the latest from Brent Stafford at Regulator Watch:

With the door now finally shut on the disastrous year of 2020, it’s time to reflect on how vaping and tobacco harm reduction in general, faired during a year that brought massive upheaval to the lives of so many.
At the epicentre of the turmoil is the public health movement and as so often is the case, its intersection with politics.
Joining us today on RegWatch is Greg Conley the president of the American Vaping Association. Hear Conley’s take on which disaster caused more damage to the U.S. vaping industry: the scare over the so-called teen vaping epidemic, EVALI, or the response to the pandemic. And hear his detailed warning about the recently passed vape mail law that bans U.S. Mail shipments of vaping products and forces online vape sellers to comply with an unwieldy tax mandate.

Only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com.

Released: January 16, 2020
Produced by Brent Stafford

This episode is supported by DEMAND VAPE

Make RegWatch happen, go to: support.regulatorwatch.com

“Dartmouth College’s announcement last week of a new policy prohibiting the use of tobacco products on campus has received mixed reviews from members of the Dartmouth community. The policy, which goes into effect on March 18, bans smoking and the use of other tobacco products, including chewing tobacco and e-cigarettes, in all facilities, grounds, vehicles or other Dartmouth properties by students, employees and visitors. Dartmouth joins more than 2,000 other campuses, according to the American Cancer Society’s Center for Tobacco Control. The college’s efforts to do so extend back at least to the fall of 2018, when it received a $11,900 grant from the Center for Tobacco Control, Dartmouth spokeswoman Diana Lawrence said.”

BILL TARLING — So hopefully you can see the “Center for Tobacco Control” happily hands out money to demonize harm reduction products such as e-liquid vape products [which have a huge success rate at creating ex-smokers] in order to help Pharma protect their sales of shoddy NRT product sales [which have been shown to have over a 90% failure rate]. Dartmouth College has shown how cheap they’re willing to sell out peoples’ lives.

ARTICLE LINK:  Dartmouth’s campuswide ban on tobacco earns praise, criticism

“Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued warning letters to 10 firms who manufacture and operate websites selling electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) products, specifically e-liquids, advising them that selling these products, which lack premarket authorization, is illegal, and therefore they cannot be sold or distributed in the U.S. The firms did not submit a premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) by the Sept. 9, 2020 deadline. The 10 firms receiving warning letters are Little House Vapes LLC; Castle Rock Vapor LLC; Dropsmoke Inc.; Perfection Vapes Inc.; CLS Trading LLC d/b/a Vape Dudes HQ; Session Supply Co.; Coastal E-Liquid Laboratory/GC Vapors LLC; Dr. Crimmy LLC d/b/a Dr. Crimmy’s V-Liquid; CMM Capital LLC d/b/a ETX Vape; and E-Cig Barn LLC.”

ARTICLE LINK: FDA Warns Firms to Remove Unauthorized E-liquid Products from Market

““Vaping could nearly triple the chance of smoking in teens”, says a group from Ohio State University. Their false fears over a non-existent epidemic, addiction, and a gateway to smoking has been quashed by work by Jackson, Brown, and Jarvis at University College London (UCL). What they actually demonstrated was that teens more predisposed to smoking were also more likely to try vaping. Their work contains a total absence of evidence that vaping leads to smoking, leaning too heavily on the debunked trope that a teen epidemic exists in the United States. The declining smoking rate ought to be reason enough for American researchers to drop the false fear of a teen gateway and focus on the real benefit – vaping works to help smokers quit and offers a fraction of the danger and addictive aspects of smoking for adults.”

ARTICLE LINK:   US Teens Not Dependent On Ecigs

The Dutch Minister for Health is proposing to ban all e liquid flavours (except for tobacco flavour).
There is a consultation open until 19 January so please give your views.
It is an easy consultation to do – you only have to answer this one question: “What do you think of the draft regulations?”

We consumers know better than anyone that flavours are key to vaping’s success and we need to tell the politicians this.
Denmark voted to ban e liquid flavours in December. Having two member states banning flavours just before the TPD review could have disastrous consequences.

For additional information on what you can do to help and to find out more information, click HERE!

“As the Maryland General Assembly’s 2021 session gets underway, lawmakers will consider a tax hike bill previously vetoed by Gov. Larry Hogan (R). It has several parts, but the cigarette tax increase should cause some consternation. House Bill 732 would raise cigarette taxes by $1.75 per pack and raise taxes on other products as well. High excise taxes on cigarettes encourages smuggling, but it has other effects, too. One effect is brazen lawlessness that has included retailer and wholesaler thefts, hijackings, violence against people, property and police and public corruption. All of this law enforcement hassle might be worth it if the tax hikes cause smokers to quit in the numbers predicted by some officials, and society gains from improved public health. Frequently we’ve seen lawmakers and others simply point to a decline in the legal purchase of cigarettes and say, “The tax hike worked.” But research shows that up to 85 percent of after-tax hike changes in legal sales may be a function of tax evasion and avoidance and not from quitting.”

NOTE: House Bill 732 Summary: “imposing a sales and use tax rate of 12% on electronic smoking devices”

ARTICLE LINK: A cigarette tax hike in Maryland would increase smuggling