I’m so proud that one of my friends and a colleague in my tobacco control coalition is running for school board in Hayward (where I grew up, although I was zoned and schooled in the New Haven Unified School District which covered southern Hayward). Calyn is an amazing man, father, and health advocate working to empower youth to live their best lives with Bay Area Community Resources. He has inspired me to be a better public speaker. I have watched him work off the cuff and have always been impressed with his confidence and the breadth of his knowledge. He deserves all the support he can get and Hayward would be lucky to have him in this capacity!
Here are my activist colleagues Brian, Nefertiti, and a youth activist from here in Vallejo, Genesis (with whom I did the radio show last year), who showed up to comment on our frustration with the lack of Vallejo’s Tobacco Retail License getting adopted more than a year after we presented at City Council’s request.
My comments were roughly this:
Good evening Mayor and City Council. I’m Joseph Hayden, a Vallejo resident and volunteer Co-Chair of Tobacco Free Solano and LGBTQ Minus Tobacco.
Over twelve months ago our coalition, together with Vallejo youth advocates, presented to City Council a compelling case for why a Tobacco Retail License was needed most desperately in Vallejo. We are pleased that we were able to meet with city staff numerous times to discuss details and that there was an opportunity for tobacco retailers to be educated on this forthcoming ordinance. [Not a single retailer showed up. ]
Despite this bit of progress, there’s frustration that there is still no specific date for it to be on the agenda of the Planning Commission, which is where the ordinance sits before it can be read out to the City Council for the FIRST reading, something City Council was hoping to have by September of last year!
Moreover, we’re now aware, as City staff is, about the deadline for the California State Attorney General looking to assist with funding for jurisdictions that adopt tobacco retail licenses in time. I don’t want to see Vallejo miss out on these very helpful state funds, especially for a REVENUE NEUTRAL ordinance that will save lives. This is about the most preventable cause of death in the United States.
Please help us to hasten the reading of this ordinance, lest we lose momentum. Please keep the outrage alive at what has happened to our families, and continues to happen, when Peddlers of POISON try to Persuade us that they deserve the Privilege of having our youth Purchase their Products.
Keep in mind that since we first presented, other jurisdictions in Massachusetts and at least two cities in California already have stopped the sale of commercial tobacco ALTOGETHER to help save their citizens from this scourge. This is called End Game.
How many lives could have been improved and lengthened if we had already thwarted these Vallejo youth from being addicted to a toxic product that kills when used as intended, the availability of which lets them think that it’s okay to engage in self-destructive behavior? Tobacco is the most unregulated drug in the world that is still readily available to them, especially when we compare Vallejo’s underage youth sale rates to other Bay Area jurisdictions. By design, in food deserts, one only needs to extend one’s arm to find nicotine products in every direction. This is still a health equity issue. So how many shortened life spans and devastated families will know my family’s grief (and that of some of you) because of the lack of outrage at what the tobacco retailers continue to get away with? Unchecked sales and no accountability are why we need a tobacco retail license forthwith.
I ask you to think about what the inherently racist, callous and insidious industry of Big Tobacco is doing to our families. The job of our governments, including local governments, is to protect citizens. That means standing up for us no despite the unlikely threat of litigation from the industry.
Pulmonologists say that NOTHING SHOULD GO INTO OUR LUNGS (or our kids’ lungs) except AIR!
Later in the evening, my colleague Calyn Kelly called in and got the conversation re-triggered and heated, so let’s hope we hear something soon!
I learned a LOT at the Tobacco End Game Summit in Washington DC last week. On the verge of tears, I found “my people” in large numbers like I’ve never seen before from many countries and many states. I’ve had to become pretty expert in smokeless cannabis, commercial tobacco, nicotine, and many other nuances to be a better activist to save as many lives as I can with the help of those who are awake enough to pay attention to this continuing nightmare of death and destruction everywhere we turn still. If anyone is interested in hearing more about the INHERENT racism and other historical truths that have brought us to where we are today, please reach out. I’ll privately send you some of the talking points I learned that will hopefully resonate with anyone who cares about health equity. One point that really hit home also was that it’s the government’s JOB to protect us and our health, so why are they doing such a poor job of that after centuries of devastation from and exploitation with this bastardized product?
While my decision to vote for the Democratic ticket is not in doubt, I’m GRAVELY disappointed in this terrible decision that the Biden administration has made by kowtowing to the poison peddlers also known as Big Tobacco who have targeted Black Lives (disproportionately) with these flavored products used to mask the harshness of this highly addictive drug that has been marketed to people of color for decades since their lives matter even less to Tobacco Fat Cats than the rest of us human biological experiments. I’m proud that at least California had the sense to ban menthol, but Big Tobacco was at the ready to immediately start issuing identically marketed “non-menthol” products to continue poisoning people who smoke with their commercial tobacco without missing a beat. Anyone who supports BLM should know that far more Black people are killed by this product when used as intended than any other cause, and 8 million people are killed a year by this product worldwide, including 400,000 in the United States alone, making it THE MOST preventable cause of death. It’s the least regulated product in the world and we are still tolerating it for the profit of a few. There are far more of us who should be up in arms that those profiting. Where is the OUTRAGE?!
At least this article correctly points out that Al Sharpton is fighting to keep menthol cigarettes available. There is HARD PROOF he receives tobacco underwriting if you look at the fine print of his speaking tours. He’s literally receiving payola and blood money to kill Black people, so if you didn’t have a reason to dislike this fake progressive in the past, now you do.
Had a fantastic experience here in Washington DC for the Tobacco End Game Summit. I found my people from every corner of the USA and from several other countries trying to save lives by fighting an industry that has the PRIVILEGE to PEDDLE POISON. Where is the outrage at 8 MILLION preventable deaths a year?
I took a few other days here in DC to see museums and I got a start by going to the National Gallery. What a gem, and what a reminder of how beautifully this French-inspired city was laid out. I was so reminded of wonderful times in Paris when I sat in the drizzle on the National Mall. I saw incredible works and experienced zen in the halls of this most gorgeous building as well. I’m sure the pictures won’t do it justice.
Americans have so much to be proud of in our society with the right context put to the art of our culture, and that was very clear in the depictions of black and indigenous Americans, even though the gallery was very heavily European-influenced. Reading the fine print and discovering what is behind art history reveals so much. I hope to see a variety of museums while I’m here.
Guess who is front and center in this picture?!?!?
In the first block of pictures below I’m commenting on the enforcement of tobacco control ordinances and how we must ensure that accountability is included in the ordinance when it is passed. I also mentioned that we should not send police officers into tobacco retail establishments “guns-a-blazing” whenever we have options, as we do, to use code enforcement resources that municipalities and counties have, or even civilian volunteers/non-profits that are willing to protect our youth from the poison that is sold legally and without regularly to addict our populations and manifesting the most preventable cause of death.
You can see me in a bunch of these pictures fully engaged and in some cases almost on the verge of tears.
Trying to enjoy yet another sci-fi series (3 Body Problem) and there is CONSTANT smoking in the 2024 scenes. How many tobacco executives produced this? It’s disgusting, distracting, unrealistic and of course like in the Avatar movie, these are PhD’s smoking? What does that tell us? There’s nothing redeemable or necessary about these characters smoking of course. It’s all product placement. Tobacco truthteller organizations have noticed a huge uptick in smoking in movies and shows. It’s intentionally put in there as it always has been by one industry trying to sell poison. We need to make this outrage public. It was very easy to find an article on this: https://mashable.com/article/3-body-problem-smoking
There was a short Smoking Ordinance Workshop for Retailer “education.” It was presented by City Attorney’s Office of the City of Vallejo on the forthcoming Tobacco Retail License (“TRL”).
It’s important to me to document the activism being done in fighting for tobacco control in my city. This is a video and presentation intended for tobacco retailers in Vallejo about the forthcoming TRL our coalition has been fighting for. For the record no tobacco retailers showed up (there are well over 100 in our city of 125,000. There were two callers on Zoom, but I believe they were both members of our coalition.
At the end of this presentation, you will hear me ask a question about the criminal enforcement portion of this proposed TRL. For the record, I object to the criminalization of clerks in these situations and intend to make that point to City Council when this is first read, among other things where I feel the TRL falls short. I also feel strongly that the city MUST mandate at least one yearly check for all tobacco retailers for this ordinance to have any teeth, regardless of their possibly having to get creative to hire a non-profit organization or someone to assist with it if the staffing is inadequate in certain years. Furthermore, I believe a yearly report of what was and what was not done must be presented publicly to City Council so that there is accountability regardless of where this ordinance goes.
We had a hybrid meeting in Fairfield, California the day I moved into my rental (so I was exhausted), but this was important for me to attend in person. My introduction of the keynote speakers starts at 00:21:45. I was happy to have a hand in suggesting that we do this as a “End Game” theme. The awards are given at 2:29:00.
This e-card from fellow tobacco control activists really blew me away with its sweetness. It’s certainly nice to get such warm kudos for something one loves doing in otherwise dark times in one’s life. I’m so lucky to have found these volunteering opportunities here in the Bay Area and Solano County given that fighting Big Tobacco has been a passion of mine for decades.
I’m returning to my old stomping grounds on Tuesday, December 12, to speak about a timely Tobacco Retail License update for that city. My alma mater, James Logan High School is there (the only high school in town still), so many formidable years of my life were shaped by Union City, where I also lived.
Cumulatively I also lived in the adjacent cities of Hayward and Fremont for decades. The goal is to thwart Big Tobacco from continuing to sell poison to youth illegally.
Even if one child is spared the addiction of nicotine addiction for his or her life, this journey to the East Bay will be worthwhile.
Unless one’s looking for it, one cannot imagine what branding is being used to market to kids, becoming environmental waste clogging our waterways, manufactured with cheap metals, plastics, battery acid, and other toxic, carcinogenic, leaking substances, including containers that will take thousands of years to decompose. Even if one child is spared the addiction of nicotine addiction for his or her life, this journey to the East Bay will be worthwhile.
