The American Suntanning Association came out on the winning side or is on track to win in 11 state legislative issues in 2022 without a defeat, continuing its efforts to use science to convince legislators that our approach to sunburn prevention and parental consent for tanners is the best way to address sun care issues.
ASA is now 25-0 in the past two years in state house issues and 41-1 in the past three years.
“We have blazed a common approach of putting real-world sun care in constructive, scientifically supported terms,” says ASA Director of Scientific Affairs, Joseph Levy, whose responsibilities include managing the Association’s state advocacy efforts. Since 2015, ASA has convinced state legislatures 120 times that our positions make sense – continuing to win when we have the opportunity to lay out the unintended consequences of anti-sun legislation.
“We can demonstrate that our position is solid scientifically,” said Levy, who has now traveled to 43 different state capitols on behalf of ASA and ASA partners.
2022 State Capitol Highlights:
- ASA took action to prevent bills from even being introduced at all this year in seven states – states where bill draft language existed, but where advocates were convinced the bills would face legitimate opposition. “Obviously, this is the best use of everyone’s resources,” Levy said. “And we are not doing this by being obstructionist. We’re doing it by being constructive, which gives us a better chance to be effective in the long-term on all of these issues.”
- ASA convinced legislators not to move two bills calling for the world’s first under-21 sunbed restriction in New York State. ASA convinced legislators not to introduce under-21 bills in California, which were being pushed by that state’s dermatology groups.
- ASA successfully amended three bills in California, Vermont and Rhode Island that will prohibit the future sale of most fluorescent lamps, with exemptions for all of the categories of lamps that emit UV light. The specific exemption for sunlamps in the original drafts of those bills improperly identified sunlamp products, which would have left some sunlamps non-compliant and created regulatory confusion, especially in coming years as that legislation very likely spreads nationally state-by-state. ASA located and identified the groups pushing the bills nationally, and worked with them to change the language to be used as the model for bills in coming years. “These were the first three states moving these bills. We nipped this in the bud,” Levy said. “And we did it cooperatively rather than confrontationally.”
- Early in 2022, ASA met with legislators and anti-sun advocates attempting to move an under-18 UV-tanning prohibition in Ohio, constructively identifying factual errors in their materials and fortifying our position with opponents of those bills in the legislature who had suspected they weren’t hearing the whole story from the anti-sun groups.
Levy has worked hard to educate both sides of the aisle that professional sunbed facilitates have a scientifically-supported position. That’s become more and more important, as sun care topics have become less partisan than the days of the 1990s, when it was simply a “more-or-less regulation” issue.
“I’ve been pretty consistent for 30 years that effective sunburn prevention is the future of professional sunbed operations,” Levy said. “And there’s no doubt that’s the gas that puts fuel in our engine. Demonstrating that to both sides of the aisle is going to be more and more important as we enter the next decade.”
Tanning professionals in every state are encouraged to join ASA to help the association fund this advocacy work. Call 855.879.7678 or visit AmericanSuntanning.org/register.
“The best way to keep anti-sun legislation from getting any traction is to re-dedicate your tanning business to professional practices, sunburn prevention, and to be worthy of the path that is being blazed for the tanning market of tomorrow,” Levy said. “And get involved with ASA. We need your support.”
ASA is now 25-0 in the past two years in state house issues and 41-1 in the past three years.
