I operate and own the largest e-cigarette distribution company in the U.S. My business is based in Buffalo. The work my company does creates hundreds of jobs in the state, generates millions of dollars of tax revenue for the State of New York, and, most importantly, ensures that retailers across New York can offer their adult customers a vastly less harmful alternative to smoking combustible cigarettes.
Not everyone sees the work my company does in the same light, namely, Mayor Adams. Earlier this summer, Adams launched an egregious legal assault on my business. The City of New York’s legal team sued my company for allegedly illegally selling e-cigarettes to New York City consumers even though it clearly understands my company makes no consumer sales and it has no basis to allege otherwise.
I am now using every legal tool available to dismiss the city’s baseless claims and correct the record. This lawsuit is politically motivated theater designed to distract from the mayor’s abysmal and embarrassing record. The lawsuit itself was riddled with factual errors that fundamentally undermine the basis for the city’s claims. The mayor, to appear protective of New Yorkers, seems to have allowed anti-vaping special interest groups to use his office for their own agenda.
But this attempt to go after us, and the vaping industry as a whole, goes beyond the law. At a highly orchestrated and widely covered public press conference with Adams, I along with those I employ were referred to as “drug dealers.” This type of inflammatory and disingenuous rhetoric is totally beyond the pale, but it isn’t surprising given the mayor’s current predicament.
Right now, New York is a city in crisis. The mayor’s desire for New York to be a sanctuary city has led its officials to consider housing migrants in Central Park. Violent crime and robbery levels are too high. Drug use is rampant; the number of illegal pot dispensaries is rapidly expanding. Meanwhile, his donors are being indicted for major campaign finance fraud, and his questionable ethics are raising even more concerns.
This is not what one would call the track-record of someone calling themselves a successful city executive. Looking for a politically advantageous distraction, Adams has turned vaping — an industry that provides jobs, taxes, and a popular alternative to smoking cigarettes — into a scapegoat for his failed policies. The mayor’s actions will likely cost New York City taxpayers millions in legal fees on a case that should never have been brought and further stigmatize what is proven to be a method of harm reduction.
It’s worth noting that public health scientists in New York and around the world have proclaimed that e-cigarettes are a legitimate harm-reduction and smoking-cessation tool that in fact benefits the mayor’s constituents who are looking for an effective way to kick traditional cigarettes — especially those who smoke at disproportionately higher levels. Those individuals are the ones that Adams says he cares about — Black New Yorkers, those in low-income and low-education communities, and LGBTQ New Yorkers.
We know that smoking kills. Businesses like mine offer those most impacted by smoking — communities the mayor pledged to protect — a far less risky alternative.
The irony is that while I do my part, Adams continues to enact policies that denigrate and demean. His actions can only be characterized as an all-talk, no-action commitment to the underserved populations he’s turned his back on.
Make no mistake — my company and I are in the mayor’s crosshairs simply because we are disliked by his most influential checkwriters. Adams has chosen to pursue a newfound anti-vaping agenda, delivered courtesy of the wealthy Upper West Side almond moms from groups like Parents Against Vaping e-Cigarettes, whom the mayor repeatedly praised at his press conference.
This attack on my company is nothing more than a transparent and cynical attempt to distract from a consistent record of failure as mayor of New York and to score cheap political points for those influential elites looking to push an agenda.
If I had my way, Adams would resign immediately, but he’s not going to do that for a couple of reasons. For starters he’s too feckless. Secondly, he enjoys being in power, as do most politicians. Finally, people have invested far too much to let that happen.
In the meantime, New Yorkers should demand that Mayor Adams do his job and get back to the business of making this city — and, by extension, our state — safer, better-run, and more business friendly. If he can’t, he should step aside for someone who can.
Glauser is the co-founder and president of Magellan Technology and chief strategy officer of Demand Vape, both e-cigarette companies registered in the State of New York.
Jon Glauser
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