More EU E-Cig Idiocy: Thou Shalt Not See Adverts

On Friday, I highlighted the stupidity of the e-liquid labelling requirements laid out under the EU's Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), effective in May 2016.

That's a lot of scaremongering nonsense for an e-cig accessory which has accounted for zero deaths amongst the many millions of European vapers over a ten year period, isn't it? 

All that (misleading) info will have to be printed on a label barely 2 cm tall by 6 cm wide, so will be all but illegible anyway. This is what you get when you pay thousands of regulators in Brussels to sit around thinking about what to regulate next to save themselves from the dole.

Well now, via Planet of the Vapes, we can see the equally idiotic legislation surrounding advertising which is being implemented by our elected government who are bound by EU law to do so at the behest of the unelected EU Commission.

The document covers “No advertising of electronic cigarettes in the press etc” – making it an offence not only to publish an advert but also to procure an advert in a publication therefore jointly making the advertiser and the buyer of the advert culpable for any transgression. 

Secondly the article covers “No advertising of electronic cigarettes in information society services” – covering pretty much all electronic media, websites, apps, blogs etc. 

“Sponsorship of events etc. - No person may sponsor, with the aim or effect of promoting electronic cigarettes or refill containers”

It is currently unclear as to what the difference is between promotional material and what is informational material.  Could it perhaps be that reviews are also covered by this stringent regulation?

Or, to put it more succinctly, here's a slide from the E-Cig Summit earlier this month.

Click to enlarge

So, the EU - and the British state - want smokers to quit smoking, while prominent UK tobacco controllers and the government's own 'public health' advisory body concede that e-cigs "can help smokers to quit". However, after May 2016, visibility of e-cigs as an alternative to smoking is going to be reduced to near zero thanks to the TPD ensuring that e-cig vendors - and possibly consumers too - will be prohibited from telling smokers about their existence on all widely disseminated media!

It's some of the most unjoined-up political thinking ever witnessed in this country, surely? It truly beggars belief.

Of course, there will still be some who will be allowed to promote e-cigs, albeit boringly, as the PHE statement back in August revealed.

PHE is committed to ensure that smokers have a range of evidence-based, effective tools to help them to quit. We encourage smokers who want to use e-cigarettes as an aid to quit smoking to seek the support of local stop smoking services.

Stop smoking services? You mean organisations which are currently crying out for information about vaping from consumers because they simply do not understand them? It would seem so.

Therefore, after May 2016, you won't be allowed to see any communications from e-cig manufacturers, vendors and possibly consumers - who all have in-depth knowledge of the products and how they work - but will be perfectly able to receive advice and information from state agencies who wouldn't know one end of an e-cig from the other.

In other words, state capture of a thriving and successful market which will be transformed into an impotent, invisible, and ineffective one because of baseless scaremongery, entrenched industry lobbying, tobacco control industry rent-seeking and EU incompetence.

Yep, that's about standard. Because, y'see, the state - domestic and EU-wide - is utterly incompetent, hypocritical, and certainly not your friend. See how it works yet?