Thursday 4 July 2013

Crunch Time For E-Cigs

There is now less than a week until a crucial EU committee meeting in Brussels which will decide the fate of e-cigs amongst the 27 28 nations (welcome to the asylum, Croatia).

I can only echo Clive Bates in that it's time to do all one can to hinder those who would see just about everything pleasurable prohibited.
We are now in a crucial week before the ENVI committee vote on 10/11 July and it’s time to get busy
Too right. Do please go read his suggestions as to how you can urge Euro MEPs to do the right thing in relation to e-cigs (if not also snus).

Some are travelling to Brussels next week (July 10th) to make their presence felt and I will be tagging along too. If you'd care to join us, there are details of the event here. Meanwhile, inside the EU building, some MEPs will show how two-faced they are by hating tobacco but also objecting to anything which allows smokers to choose an alternative.

Meanwhile, one of the MEPs who actually understands the issue - as opposed to Labour and Greens who are determined to wipe out e-cigs for lazy and pathetic reasons - visited an e-cig manufacturer this week to get more info before the ENVI committee, of which he is a member, meets.



"I suspect [my father] was someone who would never have responded to nicotine patches" should be the rallying call here. Who does unless bullied into it by ridiculous legislation?

There's been far too much political pandering to pharmaceutical lobbyists over the past decade or so. It's time that politicians were told to start actually caring about health instead of ideology and vested interests. I think we can all agree with that.

So if you can't make it to Brussels, do please consider writing to your MEP and asking them to act on the side of the angels by resisting would-be e-cig prohibitionists next week. Every little helps, as they say.



6 comments:

Junican said...

Good luck in Brussels.
But I am sure that you realise that we have already entered a fascist dictatorship phase. Regardless of how helpful ecigs may be, the fascists have decided that 'might is right'.
The PLAN to regulate ecigs as medicines will go through. Nothing can stop it because the EU is controlled by fascists. It cannot be denied. Fascists, remember, believe in the total authority of the State. Nothing can stand in the way of "The State". It has absolute authority, even to the extent of killing its citizens with impunity.
I agree that Britain should not leave the EU. What we should do is make it our goal to remove the fascists from power, and then repeal any laws which have been passed which were dictated by the fascists who control the EU.

getoffmycase said...

'Who does unless bullied into it by ridiculous legislation?' Precisely the same could be said about e-cigs. Yet another ironic blog on the subject.

Junican said...

Yes it could, but there is a world of difference between the two. In the case of ecigs, people are deciding for themselves without prompting. They do not need doctors and Big Pharm to 'help' them. Doctors, zealots, big Pharm and many others are helping themselves to the pot of gold which patches etc represent. They do not want people doing their own thing - bad for business.

Anonymous said...

heyphasw'people are deciding for themselves without prompting'. I'm sorry but that's bollocks. Do you think that without the denormalisation of smoking along with the ban in public places that e-cig use would be contemplated beyond the spotty faced gadget geek fraternity? I suppose you will will be defending your right to choose to drink synthahol in a few years time.The pharma argument is true but you are fighting them for the crumbs on the table.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Yes, the sentence GOMC highlighted was not well defined, my bad. One could say that all moves away from tobacco are as a result of government interference and 'denormalisation' except that it has always been driven by pharma support for their products.


E-cigs have been around since 2004 IIRC and were taken up willingly before the hysterical garbage we've seen from the tobacco control industry since. They have become popular without heavy bullying towards useless pharma products, and without the benefit of prescription at public cost after a lot of pharma lobbying.


Of course, now e-cigs are seriously threatening profits, the propaganda is going into overdrive with full support of the mostly pharma-funded support of the WHO.

Junican said...

I think that the phrase "who does unless bullied into it by ridiculous legislation" (about denying people the ise of ecigs rather than nicotine patches etc) might have been better put as "tempted into it by false promises". But it seems to be generally true that 'false promises' and 'ridiculous legislation (against ecigs)' are partners - one does not exclude the other. It seems to me that both are intended to achieve the same thing, being the continuation of profitable sales of patches and stuff, and the elimination of the (unprofitable to Big Pharm) simple machine known as the ecig, which Big Pharm does not control.