EVENTS
and industry advocacy groups to ensure
the interests of its members are heard
and addressed at the state and
federal level.
The FSFA also advocates on state
issues that threaten the survival of the
industry, provides informative resources
and helps educate and prepare
industry participants to meet ever more
demanding compliance requirements.
While at the show I learned a lot more
about the industry than I knew before I
arrived and even discovered that France
does not allow pictures of fruit on its
e-liquid bottles.
The event took place from October 21 23 and on the Saturday shortly after 2pm
something happened which I had never
experienced at any other vape event
before…everyone was asked to leave
the venue
Vendors, visitors and staff alike left the
convention center to take part in the
‘Hands for a Billion Lives’ project.
A huge line of people all linked hands at
exactly 2.22pm to help raise awareness
to the horrific statistic that around
480,000 people in the US die every year
from smoking-related illnesses and a
billion people worldwide are projected to
die from smoking this century.
The movie “A Billion Lives” outlines the
history and the conspiracy behind large
business concerns’ efforts to kill off the
vaping industry, and the ‘Hands for a
Billion Lives’ project saw people gather in
public open spaces across the US at the
same time, to support the movie.
I was glad that this was taking place on
the main day of this expo and that the
organisers had taken the very brave
“We are here for the bigger
picture which is saving
lives and being part in a
project like this is much
better than sitting inside
and selling another bottle
or two of e-liquid.”
decision to briefly close the event to
support the project.
Sarah Fairman, the chief co-ordinator for
the Miami vape expo said: “It was a risky
business to ask everybody to leave the
expo but we cleared out the building so
that everyone could take part in ‘Hands
for a Billion Lives’.
“We are here for the bigger picture which
is saving lives and being part in a project
like this is much better than sitting inside
and selling another bottle or two
of e-liquid.”
“This is about as serious as it can
possibly get. If the vaping industry is
wiped out then there will be one billion
smokers who will die worldwide as a
result. We cannot l