Community Resilience: How Vapers Organized to Save Their Access—and What It Teaches Us

When the FDA announced the PMTA deadline in 2016, the vaping community faced an existential threat: a regulatory framework that would cost millions per product to navigate, that would eliminate the independent manufacturers who produced the products they relied on, and that would restrict their access to the tools that had helped them quit smoking. **The community's response was not passive. Vapers organized—forming consumer advocacy organizations, submitting testimony to regulatory agencies, building coalitions with harm reduction researchers and advocates. The consumer advocacy movement they built is a case study in community resilience—a stigmatized population organizing to defend its access to the products that sustain its health.**

**The advocacy movement has achieved partial successes.** Consumer testimony has influenced regulatory decisions—the FDA's consideration of consumer perspectives in its PMTA reviews, however limited, is partly a response to sustained consumer advocacy. Consumer organizations have built relationships with researchers and policymakers—creating channels for communication that did not exist before. And the movement has raised awareness—among the public, among the media, and among policymakers—that vapers are a constituency with legitimate interests that deserve representation. **The movement has not achieved its goals—the PMTA process continues to restrict access, flavor bans continue to spread. But it has established a foundation for continued advocacy.**

**💬 Have you participated in vaping advocacy—contacting legislators, submitting testimony, joining a consumer organization? What motivated you to get involved—and what do you think the advocacy movement has achieved?**