Sunday 21 April 2013

Real People vs Ignorant Eurocrats #EUecigBAN

Two years ago, I lauded the determination of grass roots e-cig users for getting active and putting the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) off an instant ban on e-cigs.
What may have swung it is the vast level of responses from ordinary vapers detailing positive experiences with their devices. Any decision which sought to ban e-cigs would have exhibited high hypocrisy from a government which continually talks of the harm from cigarettes. To ban something which many use as an avenue by which to do exactly what the state is ordering them to do would have been quite laughable. Without supply of ingredients and components to carry on vaping, a lot of people would have naturally returned to tobacco use.
The MHRA exhibited great wisdom back then by stalling for a period of 18 months. They have still to report on what they are going to do, but talk of a ban has since softened into conflicting rumours about regulation. In truth, the arrival of the e-cig has taken the entire tobacco control industry out of their lazy comfort zone and thrust them into a divisive quandary.

Fast forward two years and now vapers are faced with the EU and its ridiculous Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) which threatens to snuff out e-cigs and force vapers back to tobacco ... much to the delight of competing pharmaceutical manufacturers of ineffective patches and gum.

Again, though, vapers are stepping up to the plate. The EU merely see figures on a computer printout - but here, in glorious technicolour, are the real people that John Dalli's appalling document is seeking to punish for simply doing what they have been told.



UK MEPs should take note (and many are). The TPD - written and sustained by political pygmies - is disgraceful policy from the EU and should have nothing to do with non-tobacco e-cigs. There are one million e-cig users in the UK alone - plus many more in the wider EU - who will be harmed by the incompetence of John Dalli and Tonio Borg if it is allowed to proceed without wholesale amendment.

Additionally, each tobacco control industry dinosaur who still promotes irrational bans and/or hysterical restrictions on e-cig use should take their own medicine and recognise that the date of guilty knowledge is now past. Their actions today may very well have punishable implications in their future. Especially since vapers have repeatedly proven themselves organised and motivated enough to challenge ignorant threats and the people behind them.

All power to them, I say.

For further reading, see the liberal argument for electronic cigarettes and search the Twitter hashtag #EUecigBAN.



7 comments:

Leg-iron said...

The EU have grim-faced saggy men in tired suits on their side. The vapers have...Courtney Love in a see-through dress.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2312553/Coachella-2013-Courtney-Love-sports-lace-dress-promote-new-line-cigarettes-Coachella.html


I think the vapers have won this.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

The advert she made to promote them is satisfyingly sharp, too. ;)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_SFs761eEFk

Linda McAvan's Mum said...

Dick,
I object to the use of old people in that YouTube clip you have linked to. Everyone knows that ecigs are a cynical ploy by the cigarette industry to hook children so they will graduate to smoking. We all know that the flavours in ecigs are designed to attract youth then get them smoking. However the YouTube clip only had old people and the youngest was 43, with several in their 60s and 70s. These blatant propaganda attempts to make it seem as if ecigs are for older people must stop. The time of guilty knowledge is past, as you have said yourself, and you will be held accountable for these attempts to entrap our children. You should be ashamed of yourself. Our heroes Banzhaf, Talbot, Hahn and Gratziou would never behave like this - they know the evil that ecigs can do. Everyone knows exactly who this evil chocolate fudge sundae flavoured nicotine is aimed at. Resign.

Chris Birks said...

Linda McAvan's Mum. You are talking absolute utter rubbish!

You have no idea what you are talking about!

I am one of the "old" people in that video, and what you are saying is ridiculously childish and stupidly, ignorantly misguided.
Stop interfering and GET A LIFE!

Mark Denton said...

Linda McAvan's Mum: The tobacco industry has no significant connection with the e-cig industry. So there can be no 'cynical ploy'. I don't really see what attraction e-cigs would have anyway. I think the use of non-tobacco flavours can be compared to flavoured coffee. What is the evil e-cigs can do? Tobacco on its own is about as harmful as coffee! I have no idea who your heros are!
What we are trying to do is escape the deadly trap of smoking - you are not helping the cause.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Uneducated? You do know, don't you, that this is a fiercely pro e-cig blog and this is a fiercely pro e-cig blog post. Is your comment satire?

lori yess said...

when they first attacked ciggs they didnt win they just kept throwing out false info till they won