Advocate Spotlight: Dr. Jessica Sims

One California Mom’s Advocacy Work Hits Close to Home 

Dr. Jessica Sims has been part of numerous legislative successes in 13 years as a volunteer grassroots advocate for the American Heart Association. But to the emergency room physician and self-proclaimed ‘boy mom,’ her greatest accomplishment yet was seeing the sale of flavored tobacco and nicotine products eliminated in California with the passage of Prop. 31 in 2022.  

A local Heart Association trainer, Sims coaches volunteers and staff on how to talk about the dangers of vaping to youth in the Los Angeles area. Sims calls Big Tobacco – including manufacturers of electronic cigarettes and other dangerous products – a crafty industry, especially when it comes to making giant profits while ruining the health of people they strategically aim to addict – youth.  

Manipulation of kids for profit

Sims says Big Tobacco has only one thing in mind: long-term profits. According to her, these companies used the same playbook created by anti-tobacco advocates years ago to teach adolescents about the dangers of smoking cigarettes.  

“They flipped it and reversed it,” Sims said. “They took the exact behavioral science used successfully in anti-tobacco messaging, such as the Truth campaign, and targeted our kids so they could make billions.” 

 That’s what frustrates Sims about how vaping has exploded in California and all 50 states. Yet only one other state, Massachusetts, has removed flavored tobacco products from the marketplace. 

Vaping companies were sneaky about exploiting four things they know work in achieving early adoption – addicting kids as young as elementary and middle school ages.  

 Sims says she learned through her Heart Association training that Big  Tobacco’s playbook strategically aims “pro-vaping” messages at children to:  

• Make vaping seem cool among friend/peer groups, a way to individualize themselves from the pack. 

• Make vaping seem like a “healthier” alternative to smoking. 

• Make vaping seem like it reduces anxiety and perhaps could even put a kid in better control of their own emotions. 

• Make vaping feel a little bit rebellious which Sims described as all a part of manipulating an adolescent’s mind. 

 Sims trains volunteers on the importance of pointing out the injustice of these tactics, which have no scientific basis, and emphasizes that tobacco companies prey on kids when they are most susceptible. And her fight in getting that message heard starts at home. The No. 1 target audience when Sims speaks about the dangers of vaping is her 15-year-old son, Jackson.  

“I tell Jackson the truth: in order for the industry to profit, it must addict kids your age, who will likely stay addicted, ruining their health for their entire lives,” she warned.   

“They manipulate your mind so they can make money off you and your friends.”   

Parenting means difficult choices that, to Sims, are no-brainers 

Sims doesn’t let Jackson hang out with peers who use tobacco or nicotine products, and she ensures Jackson’s friends have parents who are ‘like-minded’ in the sense that they speak with their children openly about never vaping or using tobacco.   

“I can’t choose Jackson’s friends, but I can choose where my car drives him,” she beamed.   

Sims also chooses to help Jackson and his friends get “hooked” on healthier alternatives to vaping, some that might even include physical activity and an occasional adrenaline spike.

 “I take them out jet skiing,” Sims said. “I know they won’t be on their phones; they’ll be out in nature and best of all, they sure won’t be vaping.”  

Sims is a proud American Heart Association Heart Powered advocate, and she is humbled that her work – and that of 7,600 other advocates across the state – has helped California make vaping a little less attractive, less “flavorful” for local youths like her son. And that makes time spent writing letters to the editor, sitting on her local American Heart Association board, going to federal fly-ins in Washington, D.C. and connecting with Californians to issue warnings about vaping, worth it.  

“Many people think, I am only one person, how can I make a difference?” Sims said. “Lots of people taking the time for small actions can make a big difference.” 

And that, she said, is how California is winning the fight against flavored tobacco and nicotine products. 

To find out more about the American Heart Association Heart Powered movement, text HEART to 46839, or visit the Heart Powered site.