Building Relationships to Protect Adult Choice in Texas

Every meaningful policy shift I’ve witnessed for almost 20 years working in regulatory affairs started the same way. Not with a bill. Not with a testimony. With a conversation. A real one. Sometimes in the hallway, over coffee, after a long session when most people had already left the room. The kind of conversation where someone stops performing and starts listening.

That’s what brought me to Texas.  

The TCCRI 2026 Policy Forum brought together Governor Abbott, state lawmakers, and industry leaders under one roof. For me, it wasn’t just an event on a calendar. It was an opportunity to build relationships that make better policy possible for responsible businesses like us and for adults, like you, our consumers, who depend on legal access to harm reduction products. 

You cannot build a relationship through a position paper. You can inform someone. You can make an argument. But trust, the kind that motivates a lawmaker to call you before drafting language that affects your industry, that only comes from showing up. Consistently.  

That’s where credibility is built and credibility is what gets you back in the rooms when it matters most.  

Building relationships in Texas means more than attending forums. It means investing in the organizations shaping how lawmakers think. That’s why we’re proud to support the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute (TCCRI). An Austin-based think tank, that provides Texas legislators with rigorous and principled policy research on key legislation. For lawmakers navigating complex regulatory questions, TCCRI is an indispensable resource, translating real-world complexity into clear, actionable guidance that informs legislation. For us this means, help to protect verified adult access to nicotine alternatives. 

Supporting organizations like TCCRI isn’t transactional. It’s a commitment to the broader ecosystem of informed, principled policymaking in Texas. When lawmakers have access to better research, they write better policies. That benefits everyone, especially our consumers whose legal choices depend on thoughtful, targeted regulation rather than blunt, sweeping restrictions. 

Texas doesn’t govern from abstraction. Personal freedom is embedded in how this state thinks about policy and that makes it fertile ground for the conversation we need to have nationally. The argument isn’t complicated: adults have the right to make legal choices. Businesses that serve those adults responsibly deserve a framework that distinguishes them from those who don’t. And lawmakers who understand that distinction will write better, more targeted regulation, the kind that protects youth without dismantling legal access for adult consumers. 

But that understanding doesn’t arrive on its own. It gets built. Relationship by relationship, meeting by meeting, with people willing to show up and stay in the conversation long after it gets difficult. 

Texas is a state worth that investment. You don’t earn trust by asking for something. You earn it by demonstrating you already hold yourself to a standard worth respecting, and for Nicokick that means rigorous age verification, transparent practices, honest answers even when they’re inconvenient. 

The process is not fast, but when you show up that way, consistently, over years, you stop being a lobbyist and start being a resource. And resources get called back. 

Texas is not a finish line. It was one more conversation in a much broader relationship building strategy and our commitment to protect the category and our consumers across the country. The foundation gets stronger every time we show up, tell the truth, and follow through. 

That’s the work. And we’ve only just begun.