It is Linda McAvan, the Labour MEP chosen as 'rapporteur' for the EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) which seeks to permanently ban snus and effectively render e-cigs useless. As rapporteur, it is her role to shepherd the TPD through its various stages of implementation. She is, as you might expect, a virulent smoker-hater and - I'm ashamed to say - British.
I mentioned yesterday that 1.5 billion fewer cigarettes are being smoked in the US in 2013 as a result of e-cig use, a figure that will only exponentially soar if allowed to blossom. The population of the EU is four times bigger than that of the US, including one million vapers in the UK alone according to the BBC who McAvan hopes to force back into tobacco use.
Despite admirable protests by other UK MEPs, most notably Lib Dem Chris Davies, it would seem that McAvan is keen to exclude debate from anyone who disagrees with her blinkered views on e-cigs, as David Dorn reports.
Linda McAvan has seen fit to appoint a known opponent of e-cigs as the curator of the "knowledge" that will be presented at said workshop. Will Clive Bates (@Clive_Bates) be there? Professor Gerry Stimson (@GerryStimson), Professor Constantinos Farsalinos, Professor Michael Siegel, Professor Jacques le Housec or Professor John Britton? Somehow I doubt it. And yet they damned well SHOULD be there.
Why? Well, simply put, each and every one of those luminaries are capable of separating nicotine from the act of smoking lit tobacco. This curator of the knowledge - Dr Martina Potschke Langer - is not. To her, you either quit (meaning become nicotine abstinent) or die. Her world is so very simple.
Where it is possible for her to distort the truth about e-cigs, she does. If she can present a biased conclusion and miss out vital information about e-cigs or their comparators, she does. Frankly, in this writer's opinion, she has no place curating this "knowledge base" for MEPs to partake of. In my opinion, she is not qualified. In my opinion, she is the very opposite of qualified for the role, as her bias is so very transparent.
Indeed, because McAvan's choice of curator is truly insane and solely designed to ignore objections.
Martina Pötschke-Langer is a spiteful bereaved East German who has dedicated her life to the eradication of anything that resembles smoking.
She was influential in achieving a ban on e-cig use in Hanover's civic offices, and considers e-cigs to be a "gateway drug" which she claims causes "respiratory irritation and dizziness" to anyone in the vicinity of someone using one. Passive vaping, to you and me.
She is also behind an atrocious article in the Mail on Sunday which claimed e-cigs are more dangerous than cigarettes which was deleted by the newspaper because it was pure unsubstantiated garbage.
Can you think of anyone who is more unsuited - in the whole of Europe - to collate evidence for or against e-cigs? Because Linda McAvan seemingly foresees no conflicting interest whatsoever.
It's a recurring theme with the tobacco control industry, isn't it? If it is looking like the public are opposed to the latest madness being proposed, democracy can go hang. They'll just rig proceedings by any means possible.
It is towards quite appalling individuals such as McAvan and Pötschke-Langer I directed this paragraph yesterday.
In effect, they'd prefer it if those1.56 billion cigarettes continued to be smoked until the smoker quits using a cessation method approved by their global cabal.
It tells you all you need to know about the tobacco control industry. Within it are hideous hypocrites who are more interested in the 'control' part of the job, and their own self-enrichment, than public health goals they like to pretend they are working towards.
History will surely judge these evil ideologues to have blood on their hands.
17 comments:
It's really quite depressing, DP. I can't actually remember at what point the lunatics took over the asylum, but they're obviously well entrenched now.
quick question: being that within the UK Labour are not currently in power, how is it that a Labour MEP can have a position of such sway within the EU?
Don´t forget to mention: Dr. Pötschke-Langer is _the source of all Non-Smoking-Laws_ in Europe (including the Tobaccodirective)!
Well, I tried to tell her in a mail about our dear Ms. Pötschke-Langer. Obviously a rather wasted effort ... http://www.e-rauchen-forum.de/thread-64358-post-1341833.html#pid1341833
If leaders of the labour party allow such ignorant behaviour from one of their representatives, then they have lost another voter, and hopefully the votes of all ecigarette users.
You described M. Potschke Langer flawless and I can accompany you now : I'm ashamed to say - german.
It shouldn't be allowed and possible that Fanatics and Ideologists
overall ignoring truth, facts and studies are in such positions.
It's a bloody good question. Perhaps it might have something to do with the majority EU socialist group being made up of many former communists who were thwarted by the fall of the Berlin wall years ago. I dunno.
All I know is that McAvan is in charge of a TPD which is encouraging EU citizens to smoke instead of reducing their harm by other nicotine delivery methods. And she is disgustingly corrupting it.
It behoves us all to take up smoking immediately. Anyone going to Cuba in the next week or two?
God she's ugly.
Con/Lib/Lab clearly have no idea what to do about the monster that they themselves have created.
Is there an answer? Possibly.
The answer would be to make the EU a-political. No political parties allowed. Also, the leaders must swear to consider only facts, and facts alone. No more epidemiological ghosts.
The EU is still viable, provided that it takes several steps back. But, as a result, the costs must be slashed NOW! A good example (although not quite apposite) might be complaints to the European Court of Justice by individuals against States. In such circumstances, it would make sense (regardless of what States might think) for such complaints to be made against INDIVIDUAL ENFORCERS. That is, not against Ministers or Regulators but against the INDIVIDUALS (in the police, for example) who persecuted the complainant.
Is that a picture of Ashton before her face melted?
MEP EU elections are separate from UK national elections. It would be
entirely possible for the UK MEPs to be from one political party while
national MPs to be from another.
Please vote UKIP at the next euro election.
As Dick Puddlecote points out, many MEPs are socialists (including many people with communist tendencies).
E-cigs _are_ a gateway. They're a gateway to becoming a nonsmoker.
Tobacco Control most assuredly does not want to know that! They base their arguments upon the vague possibility that yoofs might find them 'cool'. Then, the precautionary principle (upon which SHS harm totally depends) kicks in.
After 10 pints of knockyerbollocksoff, she might be alright., Well, maybe 15.
I've thought this for a while. Where do we think these ready made so called 'politicians' from Eastern Europe went after the fall of the Soviet Union? I doubt they had some Damascene conversion to democracy. Slotted in nicely in Brussells.
The population of the EU (approx 500m) is not four times that of the United States (approx 311m).
Post a Comment