Thread by @VaporAmerican

Let’s talk about Vital Strategies, a super wealthy activist group that is parading a full-page ad they bought in the New York Times, the launch of what it calls the largest harm reduction advertising campaign ever. THREAD 🧶

These guys are a go-to, dial-a-quote source for journalists on harm reduction stories and they get cited routinely in the national media.

Good for them, right? Harm Reduction is an important policy, especially for smokers hoping to quit. Oh, but wait – they don’t mean harm reduction for YOU. They want vaping criminalized and say governments aren’t doing enough to confiscate it from people.

Wait, isn’t this the same group that is so dedicated to harm reduction that it publishes instructional articles on using drugs by yourself?
vitalstrategies.org/resources/pwud…

Yep. In the world of Vital Strategies, the government should fund needle exchange and safe-use sites for opioid addicts – but if you want to buy pancake vape at your local shop so you can quit cigarettes, it’s handcuffs or a fine.

That seems insane, so how the heck did they turn into the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of harm reduction? For the same reason that Vital Strategies became super wealthy, their most recent tax filings showing revenue over $220 million a *YEAR*. Here’s a hint:

Prohibitionists realized a few years ago that sensible harm reduction policies were one of their biggest vulnerabilities in their war on vaping. Solution? Just buy off a prestigious harm reduction group and program them into anti-vaping zombies.

Bloomberg has poured hundreds of millions into Vital Strategies in the last few years.

Bloomberg’s tactic here is simple – co-opt a leading harm reduction group and then oblige them to exclude nicotine vaping from the harm reduction conversation.

That’s how a group that’s a group that in its heart understands the meaning of harm reduction, like the uplifting message in this ad spot below, can be twisted into malign purposes.

Just watch at this Vital Strategies conference two years ago where Bloomberg’s paid minion, Matt Myers, explains how they are now supposed to discuss harm reduction. You can almost see the Vital Strategies CEO’s integrity leaving his body in dismay.

Here’s the head of PR for Vital Strategies explaining how “a number of public health organizations” have wrongly “bought into the harm reduction framing.” Incredibly, she claims that’s because they’ve been misled by the tobacco industry.

Oh right, sure, yes. The public health community just loves the tobacco industry and eagerly looks to them for talking points. Got that, harm reduction advocates? You are all just “over-emotional” shills and “zealots.”

What Vital Strategies is really trying to do here is disqualify any other groups that differ with their lunatic idea on the scope of harm reduction or, as they put it “to put an end to this debate within the public health community.” It is strong-arming and it’s unethical.

Watch here as even Bloomberg’s completely captive academic Joanna Cohen struggles to square that circle. Good thing Matt Myers is right there to keep her from drifting off script!

In case any staffers missed the point, yet another Bloomberg stooge from Parents Against Vaping instructed Vital Strategies how the phrasing they are supposed to use is “we’re not opposed to harm reduction but to harm introduction.” Say it like ya mean it, people!

The aforementioned CEO of Vital Strategies was glad to go along with that. Even after he pleaded guilty, Frieden stayed on board and got salary raises!

After taking Bloomberg’s latest cash infusion of $225 million, Vital Strategies distributed this slobbering press release to their pals in the media.

So will other groups in the public health and harm reduction community sit still while Vital Strategies, having completely sold out to a maniacal billionaire, denounces their work and calls them shills?

Will news outlets like the New York Times, NPR, and Politico continue to quote these puppets despite their naked corruption? (Narrator: Probably, yeah).

What is not in doubt is that these people are among the very worst actors in the public discourse on vaping policy. It’s up to all of us to hold them accountable. END.