Kids spoke with governors from across the u. S. About vaping and ecigarette usage among teenagers. He talked with the governors during the National GovernorsAssociation Winter meeting in washington, d. C. We were chatting this morning as governors in an executive committee and talking about how governors at the end of the day have to get a job done. Thats why learning from each other in a bipartisan way is so important. Whether its infrastructure or economic development, there are lessons we can learn. One challenge we all have is Public Health. The vaping crisis that is going all across this nation and is spreading with a frightening facility among our young people. We have two great governors who are going to speak to us about it now. Its my pleasure to introduce governor dewine from ohio and Governor Brown from oregon. Thank you. [ applause ] set our guests up. Good to see you. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Im kate brown, governor of oregon and chair of the nga health and human services. Thank you, Governor Cuomo. Thank you, governor herbert, for your great remarks and i appreciate everyones patience as we took a set break. I am delighted that all of you are here today to join us to talk about a critically important issue thats facing our young people and our states and that is the nicotine epidemic. And the health crisis, the Public Health crisis that we all know is vaping. It is claiming too many lives and its making countless of our Community Members sick. Well, the nicotine addiction is not a new issue. The vaping epidemic gained National Attention this last summer when we learned of the outbreak of lung injury and deaths associated with ecigarettes and vaping products. Many of these products may contain nicotine in addition to other chemicals and additives. As of january 21st, 2020, a total of 2,711 cases of hospitalizations have been reported from our 50 states due to ecigarettes and vaping products, including 60 deaths confirmed in 27 states and the district of columbia. I am delighted that we have two panelists joining us this afternoon. Doug blanky president of the Public Health law center and mike meyers president and ceo of campaign for tobacco free kids. Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. [ applause ] so i know a number of the states are taking very aggressive action on this issue. In oregon the vaping crisis has been really challenging among our 11th graders. Weve seen use of ecigarettes increased by 80 between 2017 and 2019. And i know others of you are seeing these incredible statistics. Its an extremely costly and deadly epidemic and i believe we need to take action to ensure the safety of our young people, our constituents, our friends, and family members. It was very encouraging to see congress and the administration taking action and mirroring what 19 states in the district have already done to curb this crisis by raising the federal minimum age to purchase all Tobacco Products from 18 to 21. In addition the fda last month announced they will begin to enforce policy on the selling of unauthorized flavored ecigarettes except for menthol flavors. It is a really good first step. And i, like many of you, believe there are a few more steps we can take. So i know a number of you have been extremely active in addressing the vaping epidemic through legislation, executive orders, emergency bans, and a number of state actions. In oregon we raise the legal age to purchase for tobacco to 21. We did that in 2017. Additionally in october i issued an executive order to take immediate action on the vaping crisis. Weve also strengthened our regulatory system, launched a Public Awareness campaign, improved rules for product testing and labeling, and last week i convened the first meeting of oregons vaping Public Health work group to address the epidemic of vaping related illness and youth vaping in oregon. So id love to turn the conversation over to Ohio Governor dewine for opening remarks and then over to our panelists. Governor brown, thank you very, very much. In ohio we also raised the smoking age to 21. We raised the age to vape to 21. We also started for the first time actually taxing vaping as well. Were putting a lot of emphasis in regard to all addictions in regard to education. Were doing something thats not been done at least in ohio before and that is we set aside 675 million for our schools for wellness and, certainly, social, emotional learning. And this certainly big umbrella would certainly cover a vaping and the ecigarettes as well as tobacco. Really i think with the vaping theres two separate problems. One is the immediate problem that we see. Weve had about a hundred people so far that we know of that have been hospitalized in ohio with severe respiratory problems because of the vaping. Thats what you see. Thats what makes the news. But the long term problem i think is much more serious. We have made some Real Progress in this country in the last few decades in regard to our youth smoking. The numbers will come down dramatically over that period of time. But in the last several years, were starting to really completely reverse that. Were seeing up to 25 of our teenagers who are vaping becoming addicted to nicotine. What were seeing is they really have taken a playbook from big tobacco. Theyre using the same techniques that tobacco used for many, many years to addict young people and to get young people hooked. This is something that matt meyers and i dealt with when we were i was in the United States senate. We tried to deal with those tactics. But these folks are very, very, very good. They are really addicting a new generation. Same tactics big tobacco used. You know, the fruity flavors. Doing all of the things they could to make it look cool. You know, they have a device that looks like a flash drive. Not only do is it look cool but its also pretty easy to hide from parents or hide from teachers. So this has been a very, very sophisticated marketing technique that very tragically is working very, very well. So, you know, i applaud efforts the federal government has made. I think thats a good beginning. We can probably go, fda can probably go a lot further frankly into kind of closing some of the loop holes that are there. But at least were moving down the pathway. This is just a huge health challenge. You know, if we look at the ramifications, 25 of kids becoming addicted to nicotine and we know how very addictive nicotine is, thats a very, very frightening thing with Long Term Health implications and certainly long term implications in regard to medicaid, for example. Our medicaid costs that we face in each state. Thank you. Over to our panelists. Thank you. Thank you, Governor Brown, governor dewine, and the nga for the opportunity to be here. My name is doug blankey and i lead a nonprofit legal center in the twin cities where we have 15 attorneys specializing in these issues we are discussing today who are ready to help you and your staff and your Legal Counsel as you wrestle with these issues that were discussing. Our folks are already working with your staff within your health department, so, please, let us know how we can be helpful to you. We want to do that because, like you, and justice brandeis, we truly believe the states are the laboratories of our democracy and its where we experiment until we get it right and find the path forward for the nation. There is nowhere where thats been more true than in this field of Tobacco Control where virtually every major advance in history has originated at the state and local level. And never have we needed your leadership more than we do now as the governors have said, this vaping crisis has exploded upon us. For 20 years and more, we had made slow, painfully slow but steady progress in reducing youth smoking. 20 years ago when i was relatively new in this field we had 28 of High School Kids smoking cigarettes. And through a lot of blood, sweat, and tears by many people in this room, we have now brought that down to 5. 8 . We might even be saying that victory was almost within our reach. If ecigarettes had not exploded upon the scene in the last five years. Driven by slick design, fancy flavors that attract kids, and technology that allows nicotine that can be twice as potent as that in cigarettes we have now suddenly reached the point that while cigarettes smoking is down to 5 , the use of ecigarettes is up there at 28 and continuing to grow. We have to do something about it. My focus this afternoon is going to be on the balance between the federal responsibility and the state responsibility. Its been a decade since Congress Gave authority over Tobacco Products. Weve had kind of a dance between the feds and the state to figure out the respective roles that each should play. Im going to speak to the two latest steps in that dance. The new federal legislation raising the age of sale to 21 and the announcement last month by the fda of a gnaw enforcement policy on flavored ecigarettes. First of all, the age of sale, this new federal legislation which is often referred to by the nickname t21 was enacted in december. How does it afekt you and your states . What do you need to know and what can you do about it or what do you want to do about it . First of all, it just has to be said that there is going to be a certain amount of confusion in most every state as this gets implemented because in most states there is a state law that doesnt necessarily align with the new federal law. Even if you are one of the states that has gone to 21 you may well have exceptions for example for military personnel. The new federal law enacted in december took effect immediately. It is the law now. What does it say . It says no one is allowed to sell Tobacco Products of any kind to persons under the age of 21. No exceptions. When will be so it is on the books. When will it be enforced . Well, the fda wont be enforcing surely before september when theyve completed writing the rules for enforcement. Can you enforce it . Well, if you have enacted a law that aligns with the federal law you can enforce that. If you have a licensing system for tobacco retailers to their duty to comply with federal law you could consider a licensing action. Other than that you will no doubt be in a gray area. You should also anticipate some questions involving what is called sign are checks. If you are not familiar with that term, sinar checks are sales testing that is done anonymously thats required for you to continue to receive your federal bloc grants for Substance Abuse from samsa. Those may be done under contract by an agency of your own State Government or in a few cases by others and those will now be done using the 21 standard whether or not that aligns with your state statute. Again, there is going to be some sorting out that has to happen with all of that. Is there a way to clear it up . Yes if you can get your legislature to bring you into alignment with the feds and i think matt may be speaking to that. Let me now turn to the other latest federal development, the newly announced enforcement policy from the fda with regard to flavored ecigarettes. The first thing i would like you to know is that the new policy is actually an fda enforcement policy. It is not a ban. What do i mean by that . This most likely would come as a surprise to most people but the fact is under the federal Tobacco Control act every ecigarette on the marketplace today is on the market unlawfully. Let me repeat that. Every ecigarette in the market place today is there unlawfully. These are you could call them undocumented products. Why is that the case . Because the design of the federal law once the fda asserted authority over this form of product the fda says nothing is to be sold until information is submitted to the fda for their review and approval and none of these products have been approved. What is happening instead is that the fda is using its discretion when it comes to enforcement to say they arent going to enforce that law against most of those products yet and what has happened now with this new policy is a change in that position. They have said theyll use their Enforcement Discretion differently and they will start going after some ecigarettes. The new policy as i say is one to use their discretion to go after some products, some flavors, you could say picking winners and losers as to who theyre going to go after. The time today doesnt allow me to go through all the specifics of who it is but suffice it to say this. A main cause of the vaping epidemic is the proliferation of all the flavored products. More than a thousand different flavors out there appealing to our kids. Not just familiar flavors like menthol but candy and fruit and even flavors like cotton candy or bubble gum flavor of products. As this problem gained more attention and was considered by the fda for the last year back and forth, opponents of any changes organized and came put pressure on the fda as it developed its policy. Vape shops, manufacturers of these products, tobacco companies. As a result, after a year back, of going back and forth, the fda has announced a policy that i can only describe as a bit of a mish mash saying they will act against some flavors in some types of products but not others. The reason we have this bit of a muddle is i think due to an understandable instinct on the part of the omb as they reviewed this process, to try to strike what they felt was a balance between the Health Concerns and the voices of those saying there would be economic consequences to any change, whether there was really any evidence to back that up. So there was an attempt to strike a balance by targeting certain products on the theory that these were the most popular products with kids. They looked at the latest surveys and tried to target the types of products and the flavors that they felt were most popular. In the end you could say they tried to please everybody and ended up pleasing no one and confusing everyone. The example that comes to my mind is imagine, governors, if you were going to address the problem of teen drinking and went to your legislature and said weve got a survey that says the most popular kind of liquor with teens is peach brandy, and so my teen Drinking Program is to ban peach brandy. You know, that would be great for the first week but do you think kids might find their way to strawberry wine or cherry vodka . To us that is kind of where we are with this new process. And the resolution of that, the best resolution, is to look back to the states to you and your legislatures for a solution matt will talk about. Now, in closing, i couldnt give up the stage with also inviting you, governors, to think not only about the immediate problem but step back and consider a much bigger problem. If you address these issues youll take an important bite out of the tobacco epidemic but weve been taking bites out of this epidemic for more than 50 years since the first Surgeon Generals report. Here we are 50 years later with 500,000 americans dying every single year from this product. Honestly i doubt there is a Single Person in this room of any political philosophy who wants to see our children and great grandchildren grow up in a world surrounded by these addictive and deadly products or who wants the nga to be reconvening 50 years ago from now with a nother workshop on what to do about Tobacco Products. My question for you is this. Isnt it time to start a conversation about where were going . Isnt it time to think about when and how we will begin a process of phasing out these products all together . Beginning with cigarettes . We dont do it this year. We wont do it next year. But in this century hopefully long before the end of the century, long before the end of our life times, hopefully sooner rather than later. And if that still sounds like a crazy proposition, my request to you is to think about that with an open mind and to float that question with some constituents that you trust. Not your staff. Not your political consultants, but constituents you trust. You might just find this is one of those areas where the public might be out there ahead of the political professionals, the policy wof policy wonks, and the puntds. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Matt take it away. My name is matt meyers the president of the campaign for tobacco free kids. Thanks for the opportunity. We come at a time where there really is a crisis. And i want to thank governor baker, governor dewine and, frankly, a host of other governors here who have highlighted the importances and taken strong action. You have heard numbers but they are really important. Between 27 and 30 of all kids in the United States currently using ecigarettes what is particularly disturbing is if you look at that population in very large numbers its kids who never would have smoked. Its an entire new population. The other critical fact to understand is that the ecigarette of today is very different than the ecigarette of five years ago. It delivers nicotine more rapidly, more intensely, more effectively and i want to underline this than any product ever delivered so were seeing a level of addiction among our children, not experimenting. Kids are starting to use these products believing theyre a safe alternative and feigneding themselves within a week or two heavily addicted. The tale in high school after high school is i started it because it was cool. Im doing it because i cant stop. States have to take the lead on this issue. The new federal law raising the age to 21 as it rolls out is a tool but not a solution. It will help you move forward and frankly it is the law right now so those of you who have contracts with the federal government can begin to report immediately to the federal government violations. You dont have to wait for new regulations. This isnt complicated. All they have to do is do a word processing search and search 18 to 21 and if they were as efficient as Governor Cuomo said people should be it would happen tomorrow. Equally important, i dont want anyone to be misled into thinking that the partial action taken with regard to some flavored ecigarettes, solves the problem. Thats why states like massachusetts and new jersey that have recently banned the sale of flavored ecigarettes, rhode island and montana, that have emergency orders in place to do so, and a number of other states that now have legislation pending or considering legislation pending to ban the sale of flavored ecigarettes needs to be a very high priority from a Public Health standpoint. Dont kid yourself. The only ecigarettes the kids use are flavored ecigarettes. The data that get reported while extraordinarily high in one study as much as 77 . You wont find a kid who uses a nonflavored ecigarette. The industry knows it. Second what did the new federal action actually cover . It only covered the ecigarettes that come in closed pods that already have flavor nicotine in them. What doesnt it cover . That is very important for you to understand. I have in front of me a series of products which are called disposables. They call them single use but that is a misnomer. Each of these a product a kid purchases for 8 to 9 then throws away after use. What does single use mean . Each one of these is roughly a pack and a half to two packs of cigarettes worth of nicotine in it. It comes with higher doses of nicotine often than juul, which means the addiction potential is massive. Does it come in flavors . This one is blueberry. This one is mango. This is cotton candy. This one is pink lemonade. None of these are touched by the new federal priorities. Second, here are two products that are also ecigarettes. This looks like a highlighter a young girl would bring home. Im not sure what this looks like but i know it doesnt look like an ecigarette. In each case it comes with an empty container. Therefore it is not covered by the ban. What is available for those empty containers . Here is a liquid nicotine that you pour into here. This is cotton candy. I have strawberry. Every flavor you can imagine. These arent covered. What you need to know is over 10 of the kids are already using these products. So that these products will serve as tomorrows product for the kids. It is not going to take kids very long to figure out that if you like flavored ecigarettes they are available today as they were yesterday. They are not covered by the new fda rule and by the time fda gets around to it your kids will be more addicted than you can conceivably imagine. I dont want anyone to think that what has happened here lessens the need for action at the state and local level. I think there is another point i want to make with regard to it. Ive worked on tobacco related issues for over 35 years. Ive worked with then senator dewine for almost a decade to give fda jurisdiction over these products. In those 35 years, ive never seen a crisis hit our teenagers with the depth and the breadth and seriousness of the ecigarette crisis. There is not a high school, middle school, or community in this country that isnt facing it. The other thing that is important to understand, is those who manufacture these products and sell them are very loud. They are a very small number. The reality is when you actually pull this number whether youre in a republican or democrat, rural or urban, western or eastern state, the numbers show that parents in this country are demanding action and will favor anybody who takes action. This one is not a republican or democratic issue. Its not a conservative or liberal issue. Moms and dads across this country are terrified partly because of the serious lung diseases but even more so because they are seeing their kids suffer symptoms of addiction and withdrawal more intense, more serious, and more immediate than weve ever seen before. So if i have a single caution to all of you, if ever, this was not the time for you to let the federal government take over. Your responsibility here, your opportunity here, last year alone a million and a half more kids became addicted to ecigarettes than the year before. The year before that a million and a half more kids became addicted. We have more kids addicted to nicotine today than at any time in this century. This is one of those crises that we know how to reverse it. That legislation on your own to raise the tiej 21, ban all of the flavored products without exception. What the industry doesnt tell you is that prior to the introduction of these flavors, those who were adults trying to quit were using tobacco flavor. Therefore were not taking products away from kids. Last point the Surgeon General last month issued a report on ecigarettes. What it found was very important. It found that the evidence is inadequate to conclude ecigarettes are actually effective at helping adults quit. So that by tackling this problem and protecting your kids, you will hear rhetoric but the data says you are not interfering with the effort of adults who want to quit to quit. The fda has a role to play there. I hope they play it. In the end if action isnt taken quickly well all wake up in 30 years and wonder how 30 million of our kids became addicted to these products. I think all of us in the Public Health community, we at the tobacco for campaign for at the campaign for tobacco free kids stand ready to help any way we can. This is one of those issues that what you do over the next 12 to 24 months will impact the health of our children for the next 20 years. Thank you very much. Let me do one quick show and tell. Many people think i am wearing an apple watch. My gosh. Let plea push a button, it actually tells time, take it apart and it is an ecigarette. Put it together and smoke it and it is not covered by the new fda action. If you want a clue how clever this industry really is, if we dont get ahead of it, boy, will they get to our kids quickly. Thanks. My gosh. All right. Holy smoke. I see lots of hands going up. Thank you. I was a cosponsor of the henry waxman bill ten years ago that gave the Regulatory Authority on Tobacco Products. In seeing some of this stuff which i hadnt seen before, the watch, all that, how do we make sure whatever were doing were not playing waka moe. Were doing it around something, its vaping, then all of a sudden it is back in another form, another way we never thought about it. Is it the nicotine content in any medium or is there some way that we cannot just deal with todays and yesterdays problem but do it in a way it doesnt pop up the next day in a different way we never thought of . It is a great question. There is a series of steps none of which are perfect but several of which will guarantee you results. One is you need to ban all flavored ecigarette products and the devices that deliver them clearly without exception. I want to credit massachusetts and new jersey. They did a good job. Others have gotten there. There is model legislation to do it. Two, if you have the authority to do so, the reality is the crisis has also been fueled by the fact that these companies are delivering higher levels of nicotine. In the United States the nicotine delivered is three times the legal limit of what is permitted in the European Union and the united kingdom. There is a lot we dont know about the perfect level but we do know that in the European Union in the uk theyre not seeing the youth crisis that we have seen. It is in part because they limit it to 20 mg of nicotine per milliliter. Juul has 59 mg per milliliter and several of the products ive shown you here all of which by the way are made in china to reference back to your earlier comment, earlier session, has an even higher level of nicotine. Get rid of the flavors because they attract kids. Limit levels of nicotine if you can so those who experiment dont become heavily addicted and have no exceptions. Thank you. Governor baker, youve been extremely active. Wed love to hear Lessons Learned and any challenges you can share with the rest of us. First of all, it is funny how these jobs work. You get surprised. On this whole issue with vaping, we just started to see some of the data that was coming out of the national cdc and the fda about injuries and deaths associated with vaping and then in the last fall in Early September we started collecting it through our own department of Public Health and one thing we learned was nobody in the medical community ever asked anybody if they vaped when they showed up with a lung injury because it never occurred to them that might have been what caused it. Once they started asking the numbers started to climb. At the end of september we had a bunch of people in, puand just said tell us what you know. The overwhelming message we got from all of them was, that vaping, the fundamental act of vaping by itself has risks. Because its a liquid chemical compound that you are vaporizing and pulling into your lungs, which are not built to deal with liquid in the first place, and then pushing it out. There is a lot of evidence that in both the legal products and the black market products, there are microbial toxins in there that are just not good for your lungs. The message they gave to me was, you need to do something now. We talked about what to do and eventually decided to put a 40 day ban in place, which was admittedly a big stroke of action. But honestly i couldnt find out any other way to get peoples attention and at the same time create some urgency around doing something. For my fellow governors i guess what i would say is there are a lot of people really unhappy with me when i did this and i heard from them. The thing you should know is parents, teachers, school nurses, almost anybody in the medical community would literally chase me down on the street or in a hallway or in a restaurant and give me a hug and thank me for what i was doing. The people closest to this know its an enormous problem and they were so glad that somebody was finally putting it in front of the public. And our legislature acted within 30 days of us executing the ban and our legislation basically bans flavors, really restricts where you can purchase these products period to over 21 locations and gives the department of Public Health the ability to make sure we create what i would call sort of a Public Information campaign that lays out a lot of the issues associated with what some of the dangers associated with vaping are. The mothers compelling comment i got from that first meeting with those clinicians was a woman who was a cancer doc and her husband was a pediatrician and she said her kids believed that vaping was safe. Not safer. Safe. I think one of the greatest challenges we all have in this space is helping people understand that really easy to use Nicotine Products that deliver a pack and a half of nicotine in a cartridge probably arent safe. In addition to some of the issues just associated with what we dont know yet about long term use associated with vaping. Thank you, governor. Your leadership on this issue is critical. The other reason to get rid of flavors is flavors are part of what makes a kid think its safe. If it tastes sweet and goes down smoothly, how harmful can it be . You know, the Surgeon General in janish united a report these are not safe. Theres a lot we dont know but what we do know is that inhaling high doses of nicotine was particularly with young lungs by nature harmful to the longterm heal health. The other thing is these are perfect Drug Delivery devices. No one should kid themselves either if these devices are out there kids are going to figure out what else goes in them, so that the crisis we had last summer may or may not have been largely caused by other substances in it. If you have a device that delivers substances this well you can be pretty well sure someone is going to figure out how to deliver it. Thank you. Governor lamont youve also been very active. Please tell us what youre doing in your home state of connecticut. Thank you, Governor Brown. I thought cigarette addiction was maybe behind us ten years ago and now i see its just being turbo charged by the vapes and the flavored vapes and mr. Meyers explanation of how much more powerful and addictive this is. I just follow on what, you know, governor baker said where a lot of people think its safe. I think we are sending a bit of a mixed message right now. I would love the fda to be bold and clear in terms of what we can do and cant do and what is safe and what is unsafe. Some people think its probably safer than cigarettes or gets you off cigarettes. There is mixed messaging. One thing im trying to do because i come from a small state is work with clarly asome neighboring states and see what we can do on a regional basis. What i can try and outlaw or set for one small state doesnt make as much sense if all you have to do is drive 30 miles across the border. Well take the lead as mr. Meyers said. You know, a yin and yang and hopefully the feds keep following and send a clear message for us. I think that is terrific and there is a real opportunity with massachusetts having acted, with rhode island having an emergency rule in place that hopefully will become permanent hopefully with connecticut. New york city recently banned these and under Governor Cuomos leadership new york state has legislation pending to do so. Didnt new jersey do it too . New jersey has already done it. Second week of january of this year new jersey did it. And legislation has been introduced in maryland, delaware, and the district of columbia. So that we have the potential to have real change and be able to see the impact of it. And hopefully that is only the beginning. And in the end as governor lemont said i hope in the end we all hope the fda would come around so we all are have a National Solution and that they would do it in a way consistent with the underlying premise for the design of regulation, which should be test the product first before you put it into the market place and try it out on our kids. Just as we do with pharmaceuticals or medical devices. Governor bullock. We know in montana about 30 of our High School Students are regularly using vape. 16 are middle school students. I think we can easily get sort of blinded by statistics. Id encourage any of you to call a resource officer or principal. Find out whats actually happening in those schools. I decided i couldnt wait for the legislature. I did an emergency roule and i thank matt for providing an expert because it was also then immediately challenged in district court. We didnt make it about government versus business. We made it about pediatricians and kids. One of the lines from that opinion was despite statements from officials at the federal level that some regulatory action would be taken to address the youth nicotine crisis none has occurred. The mere existence of flavored vape liquid in the market creates the immediate peril to youth and no other administrative act could remove it from act could remove it from the hands of youth. If anyone wants to see both the rule and the district court. That has great language about the risks and why we as governors need to take action to reach out i would be more than happy to get it to you. Any comments from our panel . Any other governors . Questions, comments . I want to say thank you to our extraordinary panelists for joining us this afternoon for their passion and determination, appreciate their participation. I want to say thanks to all of you for joining us this afternoon, but i am required to do a pluublic service announcemt before we close out this session and that is on behalf of Governor Hogan we look forward to all of the governors joining us in room 206 at Governor Hogans chairs Initiative AdvisoryCouncil Roundtable and with that were adjourned early. Please enjoy your few minutes break and well see you all at the chairs initiative roundtable. Thank you all very much. Join us saturday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern for the results of the nevada caucuses. Precinct results and candidate speeches from joe biden, senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and amy klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg and tom steyer and your calls about campaign 2020. Live coverage on cspan, on demand at cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Our cspan campaign 2020 bus team is traveling across the country asking voters what issues should president ial candidates address. This election the most important issue for me is civil rights and civil liberties, voting rights, preproductive rights and freedom. These rights are more important now than ever because were seeing them being violated left and right, but they are just as important as every other issue. The issue that is most important to me right now is the fact that our veterans do not have housing. I feel as though new hampshire, since its one of our 50 states, should do more for its veterans and right now, veterans have to leave and either go to vermont or they need to go to massachusetts in order to get the services that they need. I dont think that that is appropriate. These people make a sacrifice for our country and they should be able to have the services when they come home. Hi, im alexa. 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