On Friday,
the FDA announced that they’ll begin forcing tobacco companies
to lower nicotine levels in cigarettes—
but declined to put any regulations whatsoever on the vaping industry.
It’s being billed as a push towards safer nicotine products.
But it’s also a huge boon to the e-cigarette manufacturers and legions of vapers
who feared the bureaucracy was going to clamp down.
And, according to America’s most prominent small government advocate,
that grateful constituency could form a powerful new voting bloc.
— God bless all of you.
God bless Wisconsin.
God bless America.
Thank you!
— Did you hear the one about how vapers won a Senate race in 2016?
— Thank you, vapers.
You made tonight possible.
I truly appreciate it—
I will be on your side.
— That’s Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin,
thanking vapors at his election night party.
He wasn’t supposed to win the election,
but he did.
On the campaign trail,
Johnson actively looked for support from vapers.
Grover Norquist, the president of the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform,
thinks vaping didn’t just help win Johnson’s race.
He thinks vaping could help remake the Republican Party into the party of young people.
— So why do you care so much about vaping?
— Because vapers care so much about it and the government’s screwing with it.
I work with groups and individuals that are being picked on by the government,
with the government messing with them,
whether they’re raising their taxes, or pushing around in their business,
in their professional life.
— Grover thinks that being strongly pro-vape
can make conservatism the ideology of choice for freedom-loving young voters.
— And so you see a chance to sort-of grab some liberals maybe,
by talking about the fact that Democrats are trying to ban vaping?
— Oh, I have met with lifelong Democrats who said,
“Until this vaping is freed up from government threat,”
“I’m voting with the Republicans because the D’s just don’t get it on this issue.”
— So do you go into a lot of vaping shops in your life?
— Yes, yes.
— Okay, well, we’re gonna go in one now. — Not this one.
— This is like the Apple Store of vaping, it looks like.
— Vaping politics are outside the mainstream conversation in Washington.
— There’s a Captain Kangaroo flavor,
there’s a Scooby Doo flavor…
— But Democrats have, for the most part,
stood with anti-smoking groups that say vaping is a gateway to young people getting hooked on nicotine
and eventually becoming smokers.
The vaping industry, not surprisingly, disagrees.
And its chief lobbyist in Washington, Mike Hogan,
used to work for a Democratic senator.
I asked him what he thought of Grover’s theory.
— I’m terrified that he’s right.
When you find something that saves your life,
like vaping did mine,
you really are loyal to it, right?
So if you see the government threatening to shut down
the thing that you think gave you a new lease on life,
you’re gonna vote a single issue like that.
Democrats have been the leaders on harm reduction in condom use,
to prevent unwanted pregnancies and AIDS,
needle distribution,
but with tobacco, they’re an “abstinence only” party.
— No one is arguing vaping is safe.
The best you can get out of people like Mike Hogan
is that vaping is safer than cigarettes.
— Well, it definitely smells good inside a vape shop, I will say that.
— The big test for the industry comes in November 2018,
when a new FDA rule goes into effect.
It’ll require all vape manufacturers to submit scientific data
showing the potential impact of their products on both vapers and non-vapers.
That takes a lot of time and a lot of money.
And vaping companies say it will cripple their industry.
Grover doesn’t care if people vape or not.
What he cares about is whether vapers vote
and if giving them what they want will help conservatism appeal to young voters.
The CDC did a big report on vaping in America in 2014.
They found around 9 million vapers.
The average paper was between 18- and 44-years-old, white, and male.
So these are the majority of the electorate Grover and his supporters are talking about,
and no one can really be sure how much impact vaping really had on that election in Wisconsin.
A few Wisconsin Democrats told us that, despite Johnson’s victory night video,
they didn’t hear any buzz about vaping until after the election.
— I don’t believe the vaping community in Wisconsin
had any real impact of any kind on the U.S. Senate race.
Ron Johnson was probably just checking a box to take care of some pet issue of Grover Norquist’s.
— But Grover is convinced,
and he’s a pretty influential guy in Republican circles.
— Can we do a Belgian waffle?
All right, we’re gonna do Belgian waffle for Grover.
“Totally toffee.”
— So whether or not Johnson owes his job to being Senator Vape,
it’s likely we’ll see more Republicans picking up the mantle.
— That taste like freedom to you?
— Freedom.
Heavily taxed freedom, but freedom.