Another Consumer Group Ends
Genuine consumer groups made up of vapers advocating for harm reduction policies continue to become thinner on the ground as the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association announces it is to end
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by Dave Cross
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Genuine consumer groups made up of vapers advocating for harm reduction policies continue to become thinner on the ground as the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA) announces it is to end. CASAA was run by volunteers and spoke up on behalf of vapers in the US but found itself unable to fund its pair of office staff.
The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association was formed in 2009 as an advocacy group to raise awareness and protect our right as consumers to access reduced harm alternatives.
Alex Clark, Executive Director of CASAA, penned the sad news to the organisation’s members: “Dear Members,
“Last July, CASAA reached out to our members and allies with an urgent plea for funding. We spent the summer and into the fall approaching potential donors but fell short of our goal. In turn, CASAA continued cutting costs to the point that we were no longer able to support our small staff of two paid employees. Since August of 2024, CASAA is completely run by volunteers. We have secured funding to enable us to continue our legislative advocacy efforts until August of this year. But beyond that, we do not expect enough future support to continue in any meaningful way.
“It is with mixed emotions that we are taking this opportunity to announce that 2025 will be CASAA’s last year of active engagements. While we will be ceasing our legislative advocacy at the end of August, our website, CASAA.org, remains a valuable educational resource documenting the history of vaping, explaining tobacco harm reduction, and celebrating the consumer-led revolution in adoption of safer nicotine products. CASAA will use some of our remaining funds to keep the website active, although we anticipate transforming it into a legacy site. This means that information contained on the site will be pared down so that the site will require little maintenance.
“Although we have gratefully received feedback from fellow advocates and industry leaders praising our efforts and noting the significance of our role in the consumer-led tobacco harm reduction movement, those accolades are rarely accompanied by financial support. For the better part of a decade, CASAA has articulated this dissonance by saying that it is absolutely appropriate for businesses to devote most or all of their advocacy budget to state and national trade groups.
“While industry support has made up a significant portion of our funding, it was never expected that shops and manufacturers would pay for everything. Being supported by our consumer membership has allowed us to remain independent in our policy positions and advocacy messages that support affordable and legal access to safer alternatives to smoking. But that independence is fragile, and we experienced the consequences from bucking the narrative of the largest tobacco companies when we opposed policies that ban sales of unauthorized products -- products that still make up more than 90% of the safer nicotine market.
“Since 2009, CASAA has been a tireless voice of and for consumers who switched away from combustion to safer, smoke-free nicotine products. We have done this work on a shoestring, which is a testament to the power of our stories. CASAA has represented our members in city halls, state legislatures, and federal regulatory bodies, as well as shared the consumer view at professional conferences and in the media. We have brought to our work the heart and soul that only comes from genuine grassroots advocacy. Consmers are being recognized as a vital part of the debate over the responsible regulation of less risky tobacco and nicotine products, which is a pillar of CASAA’s mission.
“We are not making this announcement from a place of desperation or futility. This is not the end, but merely a step in the evolution of consumers’ awareness, acceptance, and access to safer nicotine products and a healthier future.
“Thank you for standing up for tobacco harm reduction!”
The New Nicotine Alliance (NNA), the UK’s independent advocacy charity, reacted: “We are very sad to hear that 2025 will be the last year of active engagements by our American counterparts, CASAA, due to lack of funding.”
To make sure UK vapers do not lose our voice, you can donate to help the NNA with its work here: https://nnalliance.org/supporters/donate
Photo Credit:
Photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash, resized and cropped
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
