Video to come and pictures of me on a panel to come (hopefully).

I had the honor of being invited back to the Second Annual End Game Summit in Chicago. The previous one in 2024 was in Washington DC.

I addressed a number of issues from the dais and in various comments.

• NEEDED DIVESTMENT – I covered my concern over “diversified” mutual funds that many of our retirement savings go into funds that are NOT green and therefore contribute to tobacco companies. WE MUST DIVEST.
• RACISM & HOMOPHOBIA – I spoke about Big Tobacco’s targeting of numerous marginalized communities, various ethnicities and of course the LGBTQ population.
• ENTERTAINMENT – I literally said, “it chaps my ass” that imagery in the entertainment industry STILL normalizes smoking and gives them free advertising, when electronic advertising of tobacco was made illegal decades ago. These depictions, I gave examples of, are even in the sci-fi genre which depict in the distant future and especially among protagonists for no substantive reason on film. I would like to see some outreach to producers and directors to curtail this dangerous trend.
• DOGE REPERCUSSIONS – I pointed out that our HHS Secretary, RFK Jr. is a known Zyn (smokeless tobacco pouch that still causes cancer) user and popped one in his mouth ON CAMERA during a congressional hearing! With an administration rewriting history, we need to focus on why this product was drastically changed from traditional sacred tobacco use among indigenous Americans to the deadly poison it is sold as now.

As a reminder, I pay for my own travel and accommodations to these things and all my work is pro bono. This is what my blood, sweat and tears to get my Juris Doctor was for. This is what I wanted it to be for.

The African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council put on an amazing gala in the evening after the day-long End Game Summit. I was lucky enough to be invited to the gala as well. There were amazing spoken word contest winners and other performances, as well as a preview to an upcoming film made by Black and indigenous activists against commercial tobacco and reviewing the history of sacred traditional tobacco, which has NOTHING to do with the garbage products that colonizers made out of this native North American plant.

I love collaborating with these amazing people, saving so many lives, and fighting for the end to ALL MENTHOL sales nationwide, like California has finally done. Of course END GAME means ending all commercial tobacco sales as has been done in more and more jurisdictions across the planet.