To the Editor,
I recently turned down a deal with the devil. Two lobbyists with Altria, a big tobacco company, reached out to me because of my work with Vermont’s recovery and harm reduction community. They tried to convince me that flavored tobacco products serve as a “coping mechanism” for people in recovery and compared these products with proven harm reduction approaches like “needle exchange.” However,  their products are the leading cause of death for nearly a half million people in our country each year.