Episode 026 : A Native American Mom’s Fight to Protect Her Community Artwork

PAVe: Big Tobacco Messed with the Wrong Moms

Every week on “Big Tobacco Messed with the Wrong Moms”, hosts Meredith Berkman and Dorian Fuhrman, two of PAVe’s co-founders, will discuss the youth vaping epidemic, sharing important information about everything from serious health risks to quitting resources. Moderating important conversations with top public-health experts, these MOMvocates will speak directly to parents and other key stakeholders across the country, empowering them to join the fight to keep our kids from becoming an entire generation of nicotine addicts.

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PAVe: Big Tobacco Messed with the Wrong Moms

Episode 026 : A Native American Mom’s Fight to Protect Her Community

February 08, 2021 • Parents Against Vaping E-Cigarettes

On this week’s episode, Rae O’Leary, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, describes how JUUL representatives offered hundreds of thousands of dollars and free products to hook her tribe on what they falsely described as “smoking cessation” products.

In 2019, O’Leary, who leads public-health initiatives for Missouri Breaks in Eagle Butte, South Dakota on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, testified about this meeting at the Congressional hearing investigating JUUL’s marketing to teens. (In fact, that’s where we “wrong moms” met.) Hear, this tobacco-control educator and advocate--whose leadership led her tribal council to pass one of the strongest smoke-free air policies in Indian country--share her community’s historic struggle to fight Big Tobacco’s predatory behavior, especially towards Native American teens.