Scotland Plans To Gold-Plate The TPD And Further Restrict E-Cig Advertising

Yesterday I wrote about the tobacco control industry's habit of cherry-picking evidence and - more recently - disbelieving real life evidence because it doesn't agree with their wild, junk science-led fantasies of how the world works.

Today sees a new low, though, as the Scottish Government released its Tobacco Control Plan. Snowdon has highlighted some of the blinkingly barmy aspects of it, so do go read his piece.

He said that he had only skimmed it and that there is bound to be more crazy in there, and he's correct. There is. For example, how much does this send your hypocrisy detector buzzing?

In the ministerial foreword, Minister for Public Health and Sport Aileen Campbell boasts about NHS services and how "there are new, more effective medications and our services are now more e-cigarette friendly", while further down the document it states:

On the basis of current evidence vaping e-cigarettes is definitely less harmful than smoking cigarettes. So, e-cigarette use as a means to quit should be seen by health professionals as a tool which some smokers will want to use. 

It also says about "smokers in mental health settings":

Raising awareness of the need to take a new approach in these settings and particularly about the possibilities which e-cigarettes being made available in appropriate non-NHS prescribed ways could have a big impact on the physical health of these patients.

So what are they going to do about these products which they have obviously recognised as being something which smokers are choosing to use and which have led to smoking prevalence tumbling?

Well, they're going to ensure that almost no-one knows about them, of course.

Providing protection through regulations and restrictions 

We will consult on the detail of restricting domestic advertising and promotion of e-cigarettes in law.

The key word there is 'domestic' because the EU's article 20 of the TPD specifically banned cross border advertising, therefore broadcast and online media. Domestic advertising such as posters, leaflets, direct mail, cinema and ads on buses are not covered by EU law.

So, the Scottish government is consulting with a view to gold-plate the EU regulations by placing further restrictions on 'domestic' advertising; that very e-cigarette advertising which is currently not burdened by the ignorant, lobbyist-led stupidity of Brussels.

With the UK's advertising regulator recently having given evidence to the UK government's Science and Technology Committee that they are looking at allowing e-cig vendors to make truthful claims about the safer nature of vaping - as in, relaxing the regulations - the Scottish government is planning to go the other way and make sure as few people know about vaping as possible.

The Calvinist puritanism being displayed in Scotland right now is jaw-dropping, but this takes the biscuit. We have a tobacco control plan for England committing to "maximise the availability of safer alternatives to smoking", at the same time that Scotland has decided it only wants safer alternatives available via state-run channels. If they can't control it, they'd prefer you don't even try.

There are also sinister hints that they intend to go even further down the rabbit hole of anti-vaping moral panic.

Over the course of this action plan it is likely that the markets for e-cigarettes and novel heated tobacco products will develop further. This could mean that the current focus of tobacco control enforcement changes over time to take account of these newer markets. For example if there were changes to the law on restricting the sales of non-nicotine containing e-liquid for e-cigarettes this would have implications for enforcement.

If markets for e-cigs and heat not burn increase, that is a good thing! But not for Scotland, it seems. There is also a hint there that there might be more regulations on the horizon for nicotine free e-liquid, again not covered by the EU TPD.

Have I got your attention yet, Scottish vape reviewers? Yep, that could be the end of short fills.

There may also need to be programmed initiatives on ensuring e-liquids are authorised products ...

Well, considering the TPD created a new category for e-cigs so they are already kinda "authorised", could they mean yet another gold plate layer on top of EU regulations? Or maybe they just mean the whole hog and enforced medicinal licensing. We shall have to see.

... and perhaps even on whether these age-restricted products are being marketed in a way which primarily appeals to young people. 

They've really swallowed the anti-vaping Kool Aid in bucket loads, haven't they?

And as for this ...

During the summer of 2018 we will work with health boards and integration boards to try to reach a consensus on whether vaping should or should not be allowed on hospital grounds through a consistent, national approach.

It's not illegal, it's not dangerous, the same document talks about smokers using e-cigs to quit. Where is the debate?

I reckon the best take I can offer to you is that if you are Scottish and a vaper, remember that ASH Scotland - who will have advised the government in detail on production of this plan - is not your friend. Neither, I would suggest, is the SNP. Worth remembering next time some politician asks for your vote.

Like Snowdon, I have only skimmed the document and - like him - I think "these people are off their heads". I'll leave it there for now, though, but I'm sure I'll be coming back to this utter insanity, maybe tomorrow. Watch this space. 

"Get Him Off The Island, Export The Problem"

Over the years, I've written a fair amount about John Dalli, the former Maltese EU health commissioner who was sacked over an allegation that he solicited bribes from Swedish Match to overturn the snus ban. The whole affair was very murky (you can read my articles about it here) and was never fully resolved, but the BBC have just aired a programme that investigates the case by talking to Dalli himself.

Along with eventually maintaining the ridiculous and damaging EU ban on snus, Dalli was also reported to have once said that e-cigs are "just as bad as traditional cigarettes" and he makes the same claim briefly at the start of this show. Allegations of crookedness aside, what comes across in this 60 minute film is just how incredibly incompetent the guy is. Yet, before his ignominious dismissal he was entrusted to deliver the TPD for 500 million people and was backed by the European tobacco control industry who never questioned him.

I would heartily recommend you pour yourself your favourite beverage and watch the show, Storyville: The Great European Cigarette Mystery, by clicking here. 

Tobacco Control Kills

If like me you have spent the past week or so hoovering up eliquid and vaping accessories at quite ridiculous knock-down prices, you'll know that today is the last day of one of the most successful real-world public health experiments in history.

Prior to the EU's disastrous Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) - overseen by a crook and driven through by vacuous MEPs - e-cigs operated as a consumer product in a bustling and innovative free market. It was not - despite what tobacco control liars say - unregulated considering manufacturers were abiding by 20 or so consumer product regulations. The results were stunning! Latest figures for the UK show that there are now 2.9 million vapers, of which over half of them have quit smoking entirely.

This spectacular success all ends tomorrow.

Instead, tomorrow sees the start of a system of regulations which will strangle the pizzazz out of the e-cig market and for no discernible reason. The EU and its tobacco control lobbyists have never been able to credibly justify any of the ridiculous regulations which were forced on the UK government by the EU's TPD. Let's run through a few of them.

Maximum nicotine strength 20mg

The first time I thought e-cigs might have the potential to be something really quite game-changing was when a friend gave me one to try at 30mg. It gave the same throat kick as smoking and I was impressed. Soon after, I tried another which was only 16mg and it was like sucking on air, it took me quite a while to get used to a level that low, many will not bother.

Even ASH admit that 6% of vapers currently use liquid which is stronger than 20% which, by law, they will no longer be able to buy from tomorrow, equating to 174,000 vapers (in reality it will be more than that because manufacturers are erring on the side of caution and limiting to 18mg).

What these 174,000 vapers will do is anyone's guess but it's clear that many will find that vaping no longer offers them the same experience and go back to smoking. It doesn't matter though, because ASH says fuck 'em. What's more, around 20% of vapers - and I am amongst them - first use liquid which is stronger than 20mg. Apply that to the 2.9 million and that's over half a million vapers who might not now be using e-cigs if the TPD had been in operation when they first dabbled with one. Presumably ASH says fuck them too.

Those who demanded this have given no credible reason whatsoever for such an arbitrary and futile restriction. It will 'save' no lives and can only have the effect of deterring smokers from switching and driving current vapers back to tobacco. Tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of them, and all because of entirely unnecessary regulations lobbied hard for by tobacco control. According to tobacco control's own rhetoric, one in two of those tens or hundreds of thousands will die as a result, and that's just in the UK.

Tobacco Control Kills.

Advertising bans

Tobacco control has been telling us for years that the best way to stop people smoking is to stop tobacco being advertised. By the same token then, surely, the advertising bans that the TPD forces on manufacturers and vendors will have the same deterrent effect.

The TPD bans e-cig adverts from TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and the internet, it also bans e-cig companies sponsoring events plus anything else that could possibly be seen in another EU country ... presumably so foreigners are deterred from switching to vaping too.

According to tobacco control, 50% of smokers who are not tempted away from smoking - by e-cig advertising which is now banned - will die as a result of continuing to smoke.

Tobacco Control Kills.

Maximum tank of 2ml & Maximum bottle size of 10ml

I'm currently using a 5ml tank and topping it up from a 100ml bottle. Both of these are banned under the terms of the EU's TPD which tobacco control lobbied for. There is no decent reason for this, no-one in tobacco control has been able to properly explain the point of any of it.

Of course, this just makes vaping fiddly and time-consuming, plus produces waste and inconvenience. If a product is to be seen as more attractive than smoking in order to tempt smokers away from tobacco, it beggars belief that tobacco control has put in place regulations which make vaping more difficult which can - as with the other pointless regulations - only have a deterrent effect.

Additionally, the very same TPD says that you can only buy tobacco in large grab bag sized 30g and upwards and you're not allowed to buy smaller packs of ten either, only 20s. The logic of rules which make you buy less e-liquid but more tobacco can only be guessed at, you have to ask what the blithering fuck these tobacco control halfwits were smoking themselves when they came up with such Baldrickesque cunning plans.

Making vaping a chore will inevitably turn many people off, especially since it's already a common refrain that e-cigs are far more complicated than just buying a pack of 20 from the corner shop or supermarket. Not one smoker will be attracted to vaping by the extra inconvenience of buying more bottles, refilling a tank more often, and fiddling about a bit more than is currently the case.

50% of those who don't make the switch, according to tobacco control, will die.

Tobacco Control Kills

Now, this is without even mentioning the supply side problems such as expense to vaping companies of commissioning and submitting dozens of expensive notifications for every single product and combination of products they sell, and having a 6 month wait after notification before being able to market their wares (which has driven innovation and therefore attracted switchers). The cost has already driven many out of business, along with those who derived much of their income from cross-border sales that are now also banned.

All these restrictions will have no effect on 'saving' anyone at all! The only possible outcome will be that many smokers will continue to smoke.

The TPD has, perversely, bolstered the cigarette market while dealing a huge blow to a vaping market which was rocketing along and contributing to record low smoker prevalence. And all because ASH and their disgusting European chums in tobacco control had little to do so thought they'd get involved in something they still don't understand.

It's always been clear that tobacco controllers were close to jumping the shark when it came to vaping. But from tomorrow, with the installation of a pointless and entirely spiteful TPD, many people will now see that they didn't just jump it, they pirouetted at the apex and nailed the dismount.

Remember that next time you hear any tobacco controller laughably say they are part of a 'health group'. 

Drafting An EU Tobacco Taxation Consultation Response

As regular readers know, we often take part in public consultations here, and there is an important one currently open which ends on Thursday 16th February (yes, this week) which I'd urge you to have a bash at.

The EU is planning to make changes to directive 2011/64/EU which deals with manufactured tobacco products, and one of the proposals is to make e-cigs liable for taxation as a tobacco product category. Obviously this is daft, but there is more than just that in the consultation survey, it also deals with new 'Heat not Burn' products (HnB) along with raw tobacco, cigarillos, cigars, waterpipes and other tobacco category items.

Ordinarily I'd write a guide suggesting how to respond but this time I don't have to, because Vapers in Power (ViP) have written one one already.

This consultation is pretty straightforward and won't take very long, so go read the ViP guide and then click on the EU consultation page here to let them know what you think. Remember, it closes on Thursday so don't leave it too late. 

How Dare Members Of The Public Respond To A Public Consultation!

Regular readers here will know that I often describe the tobacco control industry as 'extremists', and there is a good reason for that. You see, their methods are remarkably similar to those of totalitarian dictatorships.

Their policies consist entirely of lies, intimidation and suppression of debate and - rather like ISIS - they demand that what they say goes and for any dissent or opposing view to be silenced and/or ignored.

So this document which has just come to light won't come as much of a surprise. I've embedded it at the bottom of the page, and you can see that it is a letter from Florence Berteletti-Kemp demanding that EU President Jose Manuel Barroso ignore tens of thousands of responses from members of the public to the public consultation on the Tobacco Products Directive. Incredibly, one of the justifications she gives is that there are too many objections, because such consultations only usually attract about 20 responses, and she complains that there are organisations encouraging people to make their voice heard! I mean, how disgraceful is it that people should be urged to engage with the democratic process (such as it is in the EU), eh?

The pre-consultation report is here and, as you can see, included sections not only on conventional tobacco, but also snus and e-cigs. Considering the huge number of people across the EU who use such products, it should have been welcomed that so many wished to express their thoughts on early proposals, however briefly. I wrote about the consultation at the time in order to drive responses their way, as did former influential blogger and now LBC radio presenter Iain Dale and many others. But tobacco control has never been in the business of debating and will always try to silence any opposition to their insane self-enriching policy-chasing, so there's no way they want to hear from the ghastly public.

There is evidence that these vile anti-democratic and transparency-phobic creeps - including Debs Arnott in the days when she was still honest about her intention to medicalise all e-cigs, along with Anna 'Rent-a-junk-study' Gilmore, CRUK head Jean King, Monika Kosinska, Luk Joossens, Luke Clancy and other well-known fanatical prohibitionists -  got their way too, as we can see from this article in 2011.

The EU Commission, however, dismisses a significant portion of the responses from the 82,000 citizens on the grounds that two-thirds are from Italy and Poland, where tobacco merchants organised petitions.

This isn't an unusual tactic either. We saw the same with the tobacco display ban in the UK in 2008.

Ken Patel, Leicester retailer and National Spokesman for the Tobacco Retailers Alliance, said: "First the Minister refused to meet with retailers, now they have censored our formal response to a public consultation." 

Campaign Manager Katherine Graham said; "We are not listed as one of the respondents although our response was submitted by email and also sent by post, so we can be certain it was received. For some reason the views of 25,000 shopkeepers just seem to have been air-brushed out of the consultation report."

And it was also attempted during the plain packs campaign in 2013, again sneakily involving letters to politicians to demand the public is ignored.

It piqued my interest as I was rather intrigued as to what had been discussed at this meeting, so I submitted a freedom of information request. The response was a brief note which you can read in Scribd here, but this is the part which I found most interesting.

"On plain packaging, the APPG expressed concerns that results of any consultation could be skewed if consumer/retail groups were used to inflate responses. They also wanted to know when decisions were likely to be made."

Now, I don't know about you, but that does seem to suggest that the delegation of MPs Stephen Williams, Kevin Barron and Bob Blackman (not Paul as in the document) - along with Deborah Arnott their ASH secretary - were urging Anne Milton to ignore responses from groups such as Hands Off Our Packs, the National Federation of Retail Newsagents, The Association of Convenience Stores etc. In fact, any organised group who are opposed to plain packaging. 

Note that they were not concerned about organised groups of any stripe collecting signatures which, of course, would have ruled out CRUK responses as well as SmokeFree South West's government-funded campaign. No, they were only addressing campaigns organised in opposition. 

Of course, there were no questions whatsoever about the signatures raised in support of the policy by state-funded fake charities, Cancer Research UK, and even the plain packs campaign itself, even though they were gathered using exactly the same methods. The stark hypocrisy of these odious creatures is stunning. 

All of which goes to prove that tobacco controllers are not just enemies of tolerance and freedom of choice, but also of the right of the public to have their views counted and, therefore, an enemy of the democratic process itself.

You can read their grubby letters demanding public responses be ignored at this Scribd link or scroll through it below. 

Tobacco Control Complains About Public Responses to a Public Consultation on Scribd

Politicians, Look In The Mirror

As the hysterical finger-pointing drags on and on after the EU referendum vote, there was a tiny glimmer from Nicky Morgan on the Peston show yesterday morning. Here's what she said.

"I just think actually that it's time that we treated the British people more like grown ups"

And the truth will set you free!

Yes, someone up there in the Westminster bubble finally seems to be getting it.

In amongst the cries of how "stupid" the public were for making the 'wrong' choice; or the accusations that anyone who voted to leave was quite obviously racist; or that such decisions shouldn't be entrusted to the little people, instead it should be career-minded politicians only to decide such things, here - at last - was someone actually understanding the problem.

She'll sink without trace, I'm sure, because it's almost heresy to harbour such thoughts amongst the grinding atmosphere of self-enrichment and ladder-climbing enjoyed by her peers, but she's correct.

Just read that comment again. Isn't it quite astounding that she should even have to say it? Jaw-dropping that the attitude of politicians has sunk to such a level that they do actually treat us all like children.

We know this attitude very well on these pages. The tobacco display ban, for example, is such a ludicrous policy that it is openly laughed at by everyone you speak to at any supermarket tobacco kiosk. The public know very well that plain packaging is a waste of everyone's time, and the public also knew that the ban on smoking in cars was unenforceable as the police have now confirmed by saying it “hasn’t been thought through”. Well of course not, because it wasn't imagined to further the interests of the public, it was brought in to swell the pockets of bureaucrats and parasitic grant-seeking lobby groups.

Politicians haven't listened to the public for a very long time. 'Public' consultations ceased to be about consulting the public yonks ago, and political policy has shifted instead into ordering the public around at the behest of taxpayer-funded prohibitionists, self-installed moral guardians and repulsive snobs. They want you to pay more for your booze because you're not grown up enough to make a choice for yourself; they want to stop you smoking because, well, they just don't like it; and they sure as shit don't want you eating or drinking anything with sugar in it so they're going to slap a tax on things you freely choose to buy, mostly because you like them and the companies which sell them.

These are just examples in the policy areas we discuss here, but it's the same condescending and smug attitude in every department of government ... the people are too stupid to make their own decisions, therefore those decisions must be denied them. By overwhelming force if necessary and always with a threat of impoverishment and/or incarceration. The politician and his trusty tax-leeching bureaucracy must be satisfied, the public can go fuck itself.

Of course, if you complain about any of this you're instantly described as selfish and irrelevant. Who amongst vapers who read this place has been dismissed for their hatred of the EU because "vaping is a tiny issue, not worth throwing our whole EU membership away for"? I'd guess very many. Because, you see, it's only the sages, those with wisdom, that can see the bigger picture. Yet you can bet that every other irked group with a valid claim to have been marginalised and ignored by the EU and its strangling paper-pushing self-perpetuation will have heard the same daft argument.

When every grass roots group is hearing that their cause is irrelevant, it suggests that the bigger problem is the overarching arrogance of the state. It's not the small matters and those who advocate for them who are at fault, it is the "bigger picture" that has been painted by a blind political class!

When every area of policy strives to silence public dissent is it any wonder that the public strikes back? If the political elite didn't want that to happen, perhaps they should not have taken the piss out of us for so long. If the political establishment want to apportion blame for the Brexit vote, perhaps they should take a long hard look in the mirror.

Because democracy, believe it or not, should actually be about the people as Ronald Reagan explained when he was on his way out and had no reason to spin.

'We the People.' 'We the People' tell the government what to do; it doesn't tell us. 'We the People' are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. 

When did our country, a proud early adopter of democracy, forget that?

So well done Nicky Morgan for beginning to work out that the public don't appreciate being treated like kids and that - despite all the fear-mongering and emotional rhetoric spouted recently - we are actually quite happy to have voted out one level of wasteful, self-serving, bureaucratic, public-hating, aloof, uncontrollable and unaccountable drains on society and free choice.

The next step might be to actually do something about it, so when is that going to begin. Exactly?

The Wrong End of the Telescope

Tonight I shall be donning best bib and tucker and attending the premiere of Brexit: The Movie at the Odeon Leicester Square. Red carpet deal, the lot. I'm rather looking forward to it as you can imagine from the teasers.

Brexit: The Movie - Trailer from WAGTV on Vimeo.

Do the people of Brussels know their Eurocrats? A tiny teaser of BREXIT THE MOVIE! pic.twitter.com/7Hwkww17zE

— Brexit:The Movie (@BrexitTheMovie) May 2, 2016

If you've bought a ticket for tonight I hope I bump into you, but if not you can watch the film on YouTube from tomorrow.

In the meantime, I thought you'd enjoy this article from the BII.

If government wants to relieve the plight of low paid workers then there are a number of things they could do that wouldn’t involve meddling in the labour market at a cost of tens of thousands of jobs; but they’re looking at the problem from the wrong end of the telescope. Legislating to reduce the cost of living is a much more effective way of helping low paid workers than legislating to raise the cost of labour. 

Let’s take as an example the average consumption of an adult in the bottom income bracket who smokes, drives a car and drinks alcohol. According to the Office for National Statistics this average low-income consumer spends £1,746 a year on tobacco taxes; £933 a year on motoring taxes; £278 a year on alcohol taxes; £1,165 on VAT. In all, 36.5% of the disposable income of low-income workers is spent on VAT and sin taxes. Halve sin taxes and reduce VAT to 15% and you could put £35 a week into the pockets of low-earners – and this would stimulate consumption and job creation. Of course, public health meddlers would have a fit if government were to reduce sin taxes – particularly on tobacco or alcohol; and government would have to wean itself off vanity projects and get its finances in order, so don’t expect any change in this direction soon. 

It’s easier for government to bang on about the unhealthy consumption patterns of the poor, rather than admitting that its own taxes impoverishes them. The cost of sin is only going to rise with the introduction of the sugar levy – another measure that will disproportionately affect the poor. Someone needs to turn the telescope round.

He makes a good point, doesn't he?

To Squirt Or Not To Squirt, That Is The Question

I've written recently about some quite astounding EU idiocy contained in the TPD towards e-cigs, specifically on how vaping devices and liquids must be labelled and not advertised from May next year, so it's nice to bring some positive news for a change.

Well, I say that but yesterday's release by the Department of Health of guidelines for refilling mechanisms doesn't seem to have gone down well. There has been an outpouring of consternation - even anger - on social media and I really can't understand why.

Here's what the guidance says:

Requirements for the refill mechanism  

1. Member States shall ensure that refillable electronic cigarettes and refill containers are only placed on the market if the mechanism by which the electronic cigarettes are refilled complies with one of the following conditions: 

(a) it entails the use of a refill container possessing a non-detachable nozzle at least 1cm long, which is narrower than and slots comfortably into the opening of the tank of the electronic cigarette with which it is used and possessing a flow control mechanism that emits no more than 20 drops of refill liquid per minute when placed vertically; 

(b) it operates by means of a docking system which only releases refill liquids when the electronic cigarette and refill container are connected. 

Now, for anyone who isn't familiar with e-cigs there are two ways of refilling a refilable. The first is simply by pouring it in like you would oil into your car, as this pic (shamelessly stolen from YouTube) illustrates.

The other method - in refillables currently being sold - is via a docking system, as described here.

VUSE Port: Liquid tank system that uses a Dock & Lock system to refill the device. The closed system prevents users from opening the top or the tank. To refill, the port and bottle must be locked together.

It would appear to me that - although the entire TPD is overweening and largely unnecessary - at least this part has been handled with a modicum of common sense. There are two refilling methods currently on the market which the EU has decided must be regulated, and they have set out a regulation for both of them. It is not an either/or situation, merely something on paper which sets out how member states should apply the regulations to each refill method. Identifying what is currently being used and applying sensible regulation is exactly what a responsible regulator should be doing.

More importantly, though, it would seem that the biggest worry about the EU's requirement for refill mechanisms to be "leak free" has been avoided. They will not be banned outright as many had feared, including me.

If the e-cigarette is the refillable kind, it is particularly threatened. The refill chamber will be restricted to 2ml maximum, but even if the tank ducks under that arbitrary threshold, it will have to be a leakproof (is anything leakproof?) and have a leakproof filling mechanism. The guidance behind this hasn’t been formulated yet so who really knows what that would entail? If a politician is behind it, you just know that the precautionary principle will apply and refillable tanks will be outlawed entirely just to make sure.

I'm rather happy to have been proven wrong.

In fact, the only real problem is that glass bottles will be effectively outlawed because they come with pipettes instead of a nozzle. Having said that, glass bottles would be permitted if a nozzle could be added and you could squeeze them, but I don't think the laws of physics allow that just yet.

So this really looks like a big nasty potential bullet with vapers' names on it has been dodged. Liquid manufacturers will have to put their products in plastic 10ml bottles with a 1cm nozzle, but many do anyway. It's hardly a business killer in my opinion. Yes it's a bit silly considering e-liquid can only contain up to 2% nicotine so the regs are a form of absurd panic-mongering, but it won't affect consumers too unduly at all.

However, if you feel there's something I've missed please do share. I'd like to know of the demons I'm quite simply not seeing.

Be Proud, Be Loud, Be Heard

If you're at a loose end at any time this week, here's something constructive you could fill a few minutes with.

Via Vapers in Power, a new website has been set up to encourage a letter-writing campaign towards MPs primarily about the appalling Tobacco Products Directive. As I've mentioned recently (see here and here), the consequences for e-cigs of this absurd and irresponsible piece of EU vandalism-posing-as-regulation are only now starting to emerge.  The VIP site, www.writetovape.co.uk, has summarised these in a handy graphic for those who aren't yet aware (click to enlarge).

It also carries a Welsh page to address the quite ludicrous proposal to ban vaping in public places there.

Whether you live in Wales or not, and whether you vape or not, the TPD and Welsh Assembly plans are quite clearly a gross intrusion into freedom of choice, free markets, property rights, and personal responsibility - they also, as always, have very little to do with health - so please do have a look around the site and share it widely.

To send your letter, simply enter your postcode and the site will identify your MP for you, opening up a text box to write what you have to say on the matter. As for the content of your message, this isn't a 38Degrees style clicktivist 'postcard' style drive (which irritate MPs into ignoring, or worse) but a move designed to make MPs aware of real personal feelings on the matter, so I couldn't agree more with VIP's advice.

Please be polite, concise and to the point, a few paragraphs are much more likely to be read with interest than a few pages - most importantly please use your own words.

And if you want to know why interaction with your MP is needed now more than ever, may I refer you again to Con4Lib's words of just a couple of weeks ago.

This is important because MPs always receive letters and emails in favour of restrictions on lifestyle freedoms (mostly from state-funded pressure groups - DP), and fewer in opposition. We believe it is time for the silent majority to find their voices.

Now, it's always been impressive that fellow jewel robbers here are quick to get involved in objecting to illiberal state meddling, so I hope many of you will join me again in writing to your MP via the Write to Vape site. You may also find it interesting as a way of finding out what the views of your MP are, because if you write to them using this site, they will be obliged to not only read it but also reply to you personally as a constituent.

To start, click here or via the sidebar link top right of this page. As always, feel free to share your contributions either in the comments or via email if you wish, they're always great to read.

Crappy Gilmore

Like a spoilt little brat in Asda, Europe's most prolific anti-smoking junk scientist and regular feature on these pages - Anna Gilmore - is still banging her fists on the floor and screaming about how unfair it is that governments are made to consider the consequences of their actions.

Via the Observer:

Revealed: how ‘big tobacco’ used EU rules to win health delay  

Analysis carried out by the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) ...

So perfectly objective and not biased at all, of course.

... has found that the companies played a key role in pushing the European commission’s Better Regulation agenda, which places business interests at the heart of policy drafting. They then used the new laws to block and delay a series of major health reforms, including UK introduction of plain packs.

A key role eh? Sounds terrible.

Under the terms of the Better Regulation agenda, which internal tobacco industry documents reveal was enthusiastically supported by British American Tobacco, European governments, including the UK, must conduct public consultations and impact assessments when introducing laws that affect business. 

Erm, I think you'll find that just about every company in Europe, large or small, would have "enthusiastically supported" a rule which says they should be consulted on laws which will affect business and that the impacts should be properly studied. Businesses, and I mean every one, have to conduct cost/benefit analyses or they die from making bad decisions, who except a gurning muppet would believe that governments should not do the same?

So what are Bath saying here? That businesses should just shut the fuck up and take whatever nonsense some vacant politician thinks up on a whim? Yes. Yes, I do believe so, fascists that they are.

And for why?

Leaked documents show that Philip Morris identified the Better Regulation laws as a key weapon in its battle to derail the 2014 EU tobacco products directive which introduced large-scale health warnings on cigarette packets and a ban on flavoured cigarettes and packs of 10 - both popular marketing initiatives with young smokers (only tobacco control fruitcakes say this - DP). The tobacco giant employed more than 160 lobbyists and spent £1.25bn opposing the directive’s introduction. The European commission department responsible for drawing up the directive was swamped with 85,000 submissions.

This is called democracy by anyone else, and is the same process used by developed nations all over the world. Only banana republics and dictatorships believe it is acceptable that laws can be passed by government without scrutiny, but that is exactly what Bath Uni are suggesting the EU should do. Maybe they'd be happy if the EU passed an enabling act or something like that, I dunno.

It really is desperate stuff.

Many of the claims that they made were based on dubious evidence. According to the TCRG analysis of the submissions, “the research was of significantly lower quality than research supporting the measure. For example, the tobacco companies’ arguments were not supported by any peer-reviewed journal articles about standardised packaging.”

Politicians didn't think so. Tobacco control has so perverted the term "peer review" that proper scientists must despise them for weakening any case a scientist has these days. It's a sham and has been admitted as such by the British Medical Journal, no less. Mostly because the tobacco industry has been excluded from "peer-reviewed journals" but I think Gilmore knew that when she wrote this deliberately mendacious bilge.

"The tobacco companies played a key role in implementing Better Regulation, anticipating that it would help them delay, block or weaken public health legislation,” Gilmore said.

No they didn't, this is right up there with the most hilarious of conspiracy theories. I've heard more believable guff from anti-vaxers and people who believe airplane wind shear is the New World Order doping us all. Tobacco companies were just a tiny proportion of the entire cohort of European business which supported better regulation in order to make sure corruption in government is accountable and bad laws are open to challenge. Only a moron would believe otherwise, and only an idiot would read this Observer rubbish and accept it as serious analysis.

“They have now gone on to exploit it to prevent life-saving regulations. They are flooding consultations with massive numbers of responses to give a totally misleading impression of opposition to public health policies."

Yes, because apparently tobacco companies - which we all know are part of the most trustworthy and revered of all industries in the eyes of the public Europe-wide - were able to play on their enviable popularity to mobilise tens of thousands of people to oppose something they actually believed was fantastic.

This is weapons grade woo. The product of either a depraved and incoherent mind or that of someone who gets paid shitloads of money to produce disingenuous and misleading tobacco control industry propaganda to order. You decide which.

The EU is, and always has been, primarily designed to assist cross border trade amongst member states. It's why it used to be called the common market. What the tobacco control industry's prime tax-sponging starlet seems to be saying here is that the EU has applied regulations to protect trade - which every business in the EU would support - but these particular businesses have used the regulations as they were intended, so are therefore evil.

And do you know why? Because they supported the regulations which protect every single business in the EU against corruption, government over-reach and dictatorship.

In other words, only people who agree with whatever tobacco control liars are proposing at any particular time should be allowed to talk to politicians. And they wonder why some people call them health nazis? Go figure.

The UK Government Will Not Stand Up To Brussels

Back in February, this blog urged you to sign up in support of Totally Wicked's legal challenge to the EU Tobacco Products Directive concerning e-cigs. You might be interested to learn that since then over 60,000 have done exactly that.

#tpdart20challenge update signatures are at 61,804. Please RT and help with one last push. Help us save #vaping. http://t.co/TYK8pczebZ

— Totally Wicked_UK (@Mr_Wicked) September 22, 2015

The court hearing is scheduled for October 1st so if you haven't already done so, please go here and register your objection to what Clive Bates quite rightly calls "this dire piece of legislation". Personally, I'd call it the predictable pile of toxic and destructive horseshit which always results when you get politicians and regulators gathered together in a room, but that's just semantics.

We should wish Totally Wicked the best of luck for October because it's clear that the UK government - despite David Cameron's empty claims of being willing to stand up to Brussels when regulations are wrong for Britain - will just sit idly back and let the directive pass through unopposed.

Further proof came yesterday in the Lords, where it was made perfectly clear that Westminster couldn't give a fig about the wide availability of a variety of e-cigs being compromised by stupid, inappropriate and damaging EU regulations (emphases mine).

Lord Blencathra, Conservative 

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to promote the use of e-cigarettes as a replacement for smoking tobacco. 

Lord Prior of Brampton, Conservative 

Electronic cigarettes have the potential to help smokers quit smoking, and the evidence indicates that, for smokers, they are less harmful to health than cigarettes. However, they are not risk free, and therefore they should only be used as a means to help smokers quit. The best thing a smoker can do is to quit completely. 

For those that cannot stop using nicotine completely, or need help not to relapse, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance already promotes the use of harm reduction strategies using a range of nicotine replacement therapies.

You see, it's not enough for Westminster that vapers have quit tobacco, they must quit nicotine too or else they are still 'unclean'. Recreational use of a product, which has so far not cost the taxpayer a penny and presents wholly insignificant health risks, simply cannot be tolerated. Antique and reactionary though it is, "quit or die" is still the prevailing mantra amongst those who govern the country.

It matters not that there have been encouraging noises from government advisers about e-cigs, the fact remains that the UK government is totally unmoved and will happily rubber-stamp the terms of the Tobacco Products Directive in a heartbeat. Anyone hoping that common sense might win the day and Article 20 will be rejected is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Personally, I don't believe the state (or its state-funded minions) should have anything to do with e-cigs whatsoever until politicians recognise recreational use as central to the success of vaping and instructs its departments and agencies accordingly. Lord Prior's response above shows that we are a very long way away from that, and that it will probably never happen. His astounding arrogance in poking his unwanted snobby nose into an industry which is providing hugely popular products with massive potential public benefit - and forcing the government's outdated and uneducated agenda onto it - is quite sickening, to be frank.

So please do go and support the TW challenge by signing up here. Do also go read Clive Bates's article about what else you can do to put pressure on a UK government which - I guarantee you - will not lift a finger while preposterous Brussels-based regulations are installed all over Europe.

If such ridiculous directive terms are allowed to reach our statute book unhindered, it doesn't bode well for any of the other 'renegotiations' David Cameron says he has planned with the EU, does it?

Can we leave yet?

Europeans Say Tobacco Control Is Wasting Our Taxes

With business, family and general red mist on other subjects being a diversion of late,  it's taken me a while to get round to this, but it's very revealing. The EU released a study at the end of May entitled "Attitudes of Europeans towards tobacco and electronic cigarettes". You can read it in full here.

I'm sure you'll find your own points of interest, but there were some that struck me as particularly relevant right now. On the subject of tobacco packaging, for example, Europeans rated it as the least important factor when choosing what to smoke (page 38).

Despite tobacco control liars claiming that plain packaging will be a compelling disincentive for smokers, it appears that the public in the EU generally couldn't give much of an ant's fart about it. In fact, it gets worse if you factor in that tobacco controllers pretend the policy is designed to sway kids, teens and young adults (page 40).

"In 15 Member States, a lower proportion of young smokers and ex-smokers compared to smokers and ex-smokers overall say that the packaging is important."

Not only do those in the youngest age categories for this study attach no significance to tobacco packaging, but their give-a-shitness has declined since last time around even as the tobacco control industry has been ramping up the rhetoric. The only people, it would seem, who think that plain packaging is going to be an "effective" tobacco control policy are those whose salaries depend on lobbying for it.

Fancy that!

Further down (page 71), we find that the EU's Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) is in direct conflict with the choices Europeans are making to quit smoking.

Click to enlarge if you can't read it, but what the above shows is that e-cigs have leapt into third place of the most favoured ways of quitting smoking in the EU. That's from a base of absolutely nowhere in the last study. Meanwhile, cold turkey and help from a doctor are down from before, while Pharma patches and gum also seem to be in terminal decline and look set to be overtaken by vaping soon.

Hmm, might explain why pharmaceutical companies are lobbying the EU to ban e-cigs, mightn't it?

What's more, instead of focussing on pointless plain packaging to wean youths off smoking, perhaps the massed ranks of self-serving tobacco control troughers might instead take notice of the fact that e-cigs - according to Europeans surveyed - are exactly the product they should be encouraging (page 74).

"The younger the respondent, the more often they report having tried to quit using e-cigarettes: 20% of 15-24 year-olds have tried to use e-cigarettes to quit, compared with 5% of those aged 55+. Within that age group, respondents aged 15-17 are more likely to have used e-cigarettes to quit than 18-24 year-olds (24% vs. 19%)."

Incredible, then, that the EU and its natural parasites in tobacco control are not only in an obscene rush to deny harm reduction products to teen smokers, but also plan to render all currently well-performing products illegal - for all age groups - under their TPD which takes effect from 2016. 

Now, are they really interested in seeing teens stop smoking, or not? You decide.

And on the e-cigs 'gateway theory' which is prompting incompetent governments to ban vaping globally - and is proving to be a desperate straw for entrenched salaried anti-smoking dinosaurs to clutch - the Eurobarometer study is quite clear (page 78).

"Almost one in twenty current smokers now use e-cigarettes or similar devices (4%), compared with 3% of ex-smokers and 0% of those who have never smoked."

Yes, 0%. That's what all the fuss is about, zero percent. Just to make it clear for any 'public health' types reading, that is zero as in nothing; zilch; non-existent. That's what the BMA and other scaremongers are spending their time fussing about - a fantasy.

In fact, the survey goes even further. 

"No more than 1% of never-smokers in any country currently use e-cigarettes."

That's in all 28 member states! 25 of which couldn't find any interest amongst never smokers for e-cigs, with only Portugal, Poland and Lithuania registering an insignificant figure that struggled to round up to a pitiful 1%. 

Now, considering the tobacco control industry is a tax-sponging Goliath throughout the EU - sucking up tax receipts as fast as they can say "new BMW for the Mrs please" - you'd at least expect them to be in tune with the attitudes, choices and pressure points of the people who live in the EU, wouldn't you?

Apparently not.

EU Confirms It's Not About Health

Via Clive Bates and the FT, it seems the EU is the latest organisation to prove your humble host correct.

A document has come to light (here) which shows early plans are being made to add excise duty - otherwise known as sin taxes - to e-cigs.

(a) Do you experience problems in your Member State because E-cigarettes and other (new) nicotine containing products are currently not excisable products? 

(b) What are your impressions of the development and size of the market of E-cigarettes and other (new) nicotine containing products? Are there any signs of substitution of the regular tobacco products? 

(c) What do you think of the option to adjust the scope of excisable products by including a nicotine-based category?

In other words, so many people are switching from tobacco to vaping, member states are suffering a drop in income. This, apparently, is deemed to be causing "problems".

Incredible, isn't it? The EU has, for decades, liberally pissed away our cash on nagging, cajoling, hectoring, intervening, regulating, legislating and bullying smokers to quit. But now that many have done exactly that with e-cigs, it's cocking up member state budgets so screw health, it's now all about revenue raising.

Bates fisks their moronic plan into the middle of next week, so do go have a read.

On a personal note, though, thank you to e-cigs for yet again proving the Puddlecote motto correct ... it's never been about health.

Anna Soubry Blamed For 900 Northern Ireland Job Losses

Last night in Westminster, DUP MP Ian Paisley quite rightly ripped into incompetent former health minister Anna Soubry over the loss of 900 jobs in his constituency at an annual cost of £160 million to the UK economy (emphases mine).

The Prime Minister answered a parliamentary question earlier last year on minimum pack size, which is what the tobacco directive is all about. He said: 

“It does not, on the face of it, sound a very sensible approach. I was not aware of the specific issue, so let me have a look at it and get back to my hon. Friend.” - [Hansard, 9 October 2013; Vol. 568, c. 160.] 

The Prime Minister was answering a question from a Government Member, and I believe that he has been let down by a failure of his party and colleagues to negotiate the matter appropriately in Europe. 

While the then public health Minister, Anna Soubry, had control of tobacco products directive negotiations for the UK Government, she was required to keep Parliament informed of developments via the European Scrutiny Committee. When she was brought to that Committee on 17 July 2013, she had to apologise for poor political practice, saying: 

“I do not hesitate to apologise for the fact that this Committee has not been fully informed. I only wish that, as a Minister, I was aware of all the things that happen within my portfolio.” 

That is an appalling indictment of a Minister who took her eye off a brief and allowed the policy to be rammed through with the consequences that we are feeling today. We will reap a terrible harvest in Northern Ireland as a result. 

The provisions under the TPD on the minimum pack sizes that may be manufactured have the direct impact that 82% of the output of my constituency’s factory will be made illegal. The Government have done that with the sweep of a pen - it is little wonder that 900 people are being told that it is over for them. The Government could have said, “Let’s continue to manufacture, but not sell in the United Kingdom,” or looked at other options, but instead they implemented a policy even though their Minister said that she was not fully aware of what was happening. That is a betrayal. It is a scandal that the Government were not paying proper attention.

Indeed, she was not only disastrously negligent in not considering the consequences of the EU TPD for jobs in Northern Ireland, she was also - as reported here last July - completely ignorant of the terms of the TPD itself, wrongly believing e-cigs had been removed from the process entirely.

At the time, Soubry found herself in a unique position where she could have protected those jobs, but - as Paisley referred to in his speech above - she instead effectively threw 900 Ballymena workers on the dole by deliberately hiding EU proceedings from the European Scrutiny Committee and other government departments.

Incredibly, it emerged there had been no correspondence between Soubry and the Scrutiny Committee for six months between January and June 2013. Oddly enough, this is the very period when the Committee would have been expected to scrutinise the draft TPD which was published in December 2012. 

Officials (and Soubry) decided there was no time for proper scrutiny of a Directive that will affect millions of consumers in Britain, not to mention thousands of small businesses. 

So they asked for a waiver from the scrutiny committees in both Houses of Parliament (Lords and Commons). The Lords agreed but the Commons Scrutiny Committee said no. 

Concerned that any delay might delay the revised TPD (which includes plans to ban menthol cigarettes and restrict pack sizes) or tie the UK government's hands on plain packaging, Soubry and Black travelled to Luxembourg determined, it seems, to support the draft TPD regardless of any concerns elected members of parliament may have had. 

If I am reading this correctly, they failed even to seek clearance from other government departments.

It turns out that Soubry held something of a casting vote in proceedings, but rather than defend the UK's interests, she instead chose to cast it in favour of her own prejudices.

Soubry said she took full responsibility for the decision she took, and she was sorry that things were not done in the way that they should have been. 

“If we had not made a decision there was a danger that the moment would be gone for a very long time."

Just as 900 people in Northern Ireland will be ruing Soubry's incompetence for 'a very long time' - she may as well have signed their P45s herself. In case she pops by, here's what the hard-working people she unilaterally betrayed look and sound like.

EU-enthralled Conservative Soubry has since been shifted to organising the UK's defence. I'm sure that will make you feel safer in your bed tonight, eh?

German Tobacco Control Demands Plain Packaging For E-Cigs

It seems that, for the German Cancer Research Centre (motto: "From science, to politics") the EU's TPD has not gone far enough in dealing with e-cigs. Not by a long shot.

In this document, they set out exactly what measures they'd like to see instead ... they being everything which currently applies to tobacco, and then some.

Click to enlarge for full wibbletasticness

To summarise, they are demanding a total ban on advertising; e-cigs to be classed as tobacco products and taxed at the same level; a ban on all flavours except tobacco; use of e-cigs to be banned everywhere that smoking is; and plain packaging. Yes, plain packaging! (How's that "domino theory is patently false" thang working out, Debs?).

Packaging of electronic inhalation products and liquids should be standardised in the following manner:  

- Unicoloured packaging;
- Text only without graphic elements;
- White reverse for the indication of ingredients and warnings in black Helvetica script; minimum font size 9 points
- Same format and opening mechanism as medicine packaging 

In order to avoid confusion with tobacco cigarettes and to prevent that products entice adolescents into tobacco consumption, a standardised form should be introduced for e-inhalation products. This form should clearly differ from cigarettes in shape and colour and should be as unattractive as possible to adolescents. Therefore, only grey or black should be permitted as colours for the products (obviously not familiar with the latest 'science' - DP).

Tobacco control being the one-trick pony that it is, naturally all of this atom-bomb-to-crush-peanut legislation is urgently required because, err, the children. The document takes a mere five minutes to read (and I do recommend you read it to understand how these truth-avoiding lunatics think) but mentions "adolescents" 30 times, "child" 25 times, "young" 13, and "youth" 9. Concepts such as common sense and basic sanity, on the other hand, are sadly conspicuous by their absence, as the section justifying a ban on e-cigs, err, everywhere shows quite clearly.

In order to ensure a preventive health protection, the population  should be protected against any pollution in indoor air. This can be achieved through the application of smoke-free policies to electronic inhalation products. E-inhalation products should not be used in enclosed public places including, but not restricted to public buildings, educational institutions, health care facilities, cultural and leisure facilities, sports clubs, pubs, public transport as well as all other facilities in which children and adolescents are present. Moreover, the inclusion of e-inhalation products in Non-Smoking Acts simplifies  the enforcement of the laws, as it is often not evident at first glance whether someone is smoking a cigarette or vaping an e-cigarette. 

Strict Non-Smoking Acts without exceptions have a greater effect on smoking behaviour – particularly in young people – than policies with exceptions. This is because smokers crave for a cigarette when they see others smoking – they even feel an urge to smoke when they see people using electronic cigarettes. Therefore, the use of e-cigarettes may cause smokers to smoke more and provoke a relapse in ex-smokers. Thus the use of e-inhalation products in non-smoking areas undermines an important side-effect of the Non-Smoking Acts: the motivation to smoke less or to stop completely.

But then, one of the authors is Martina Pötschke-Langer, a vintage tobacco control moon-howler of the first water who "fights for laws" so - it won't surprise you to know - has been working as adviser to the pharma-funded but unelected WHO since 1999, and who I'm pretty damn certain would have been front and centre during the totalitarian farce in Moscow earlier this month. She claims not to need 'science' to ban e-cigs because "we do not need a new nicotine product available on the market", so was an obvious choice as "curator of the knowledge" by Linda McAvan when she was rigging the EU's Tobacco Products Directive to drive through policies to kill off vaping for good.

Every day that the disgraceful assault on e-cigs by the tobacco control industry continues merely proves beyond doubt that it has never been about health. One day, politicians might start to notice instead of being manipulated and played by rancid self-enriching societal hooligans like Pötschke-Langer.

H/T Clive Bates on Twitter

Lovely Grants

Taking its theme from the Portal "Still Alive" meme, this short video manages to cram in Dalligate, Ashtongate, the appalling EU snus ban, de facto destruction of e-cigs by the EU/MHRA/WHO and other self-enriching 'public health' misbehaviour.

Do watch, enjoy, and share widely.

Love it!

Alcohol Warnings, Dominoes And Puppet Politicians

May I remind you - as if you'd ever forget - of this classic piece of comedy from Deborah Arnott in February 2012?

[T]he “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false.

So today's big story about tobacco-style health warnings being rolled out for alcohol - enthusiastically supported by the BBC as always - is perhaps just a mirage, I dunno.

Health warnings on alcoholic drinks should be introduced to combat problem drinking, a parliamentary group says. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Alcohol Misuse said labels should warn about the harmful effects of drinking.

What a revolutionary idea! I wonder where they got their inspiration from, huh?

As usual, the public seem to have completely misunderstood the motivation behind the temperance lobby's latest wheeze, a mistake repeated often in the most recommended comments under the line at the Beeb article. This is a perfect example.

47. Old Father Thames

Warnings about something everyone knows is dangerous when consumed in excess will not solve the problem of problem drinking. 

It would be more constructive to look at the reasons people turn to booze? 

Breakdown of families, lack of job security, no sense of community, no support networks to help people when they need most need it eg soldiers leaving the army, prisoners being released etc

Health warnings on tobacco were not intended to target problem smoking - they were designed to stop you smoking altogether. Why, then, would these measures be any different? Liberty and freedom of choice as concepts haven't been prime considerations when formulating policy for a long time now so - as Snowdon notes today - the intention is not to target problem drinkers, but to denormalise all drinking, however benign.

As with cigarette warnings, the intention is not to provide information (information which is, in any case, widely known) but to deter purchase. As with cigarette warnings, the aim is to demonise the product and stigmatise the user.

Indeed. It really is very important to understand this, but I don't think the penny has even dropped with some MPs yet so what chance the public at large?

Are politicians really so stupid that they can't tell the difference? Or, as UKIP has highlighted in a press release earlier, is it just something ordered by their puppeteers in Brussels?

These plans go against the grain of a freedom loving country, so it is worth trying to find out where they come from. It will not surprise any student of recent British legislation that the European Commission has, this year, published a study into alcohol labelling, it says, 

"The possible means to increase the proportion of beverage labels including health related messages should therefore be explored; legal requirements for messages on alcoholic beverages are the ultimate means of doing this" (page 7 here - DP)

The EU report was written in January and the APPG has duly fallen into line by delivering the very same demands this morning. How ironic, then, that the Chair of the APPG and chief spokesperson across the media today has been Conservative MP Tracey Crouch ... apparently a eurosceptic!

That tough new stance on stifling EU bureaucracy is going well, isn't it Dave?

Even more interesting is the authorship of the APPG 'manifesto'. Exactly as is the case with the APPG on smoking which is administered by government sock puppet ASH, the secretariat for the APPG on alcohol misuse is Alcohol Concern.

This report was researched by Alcohol Concern in their APPG secretariat role. The APPG secretariat and the printing costs for this report are financially supported by Lundbeck Ltd.

And who are Lundbeck Ltd, you ask? Why, they're a pharmaceutical company which also paid for Alcohol Concern's alcohol harm map, and Alcohol Concern's report on 'The case for better access to treatment for alcohol dependence'. Oh yeah, and they sell alcohol dependency drugs in the UK and all over Europe, but I'm sure that's just coincidence.

Or maybe not.

[The APPG] also recommend a national public awareness campaign on alcohol-related issues, training for social workers, midwives and healthcare professionals and to make alcohol treatment available to 15% of problem drinkers compared with 6% currently.

Kerching!

We've seen it all before, haven't we? A campaign for denormalisation measures which no-one has asked for; professional sock puppet lobbyists pulling the strings of MPs; politicians then saying something should be done which just happens to coincide with what an unelected supranational organisation demands; and all lobbied for by Big Pharma who profit from the restriction of freely chosen liberties.

Just about the only vested interest which doesn't get a look in - yet again - is us, the poor saps who have our wages looted to pay the salaries of people who simply can't shut their traps and allow us to bloody live as we choose!

Why E-Cigs Are Included In The 'Tobacco Products' Directive?

You may have seen this advert for Niquitin Oral Strips on the box recently.

From the blurb in voce macho:

"New Niquitin Oral Strips are the first and only stop smoking aid in a strip. They dissolve fast, release nicotine fast, they start to relieve your urge to smoke. Fast."

It's true that they are the first type of product in this country, but not the first worldwide. You see, dissolvable tobacco strips do exactly the same thing and are available in the the USA.

Up there, second right

So, vapers, a pop quiz. Where have you heard these arguments before?

A Food and Drug Administration scientific advisory panel says dissolvable tobacco products could reduce health risks compared with smoking cigarettes. But the agency also warned the products have the potential to increase the overall number of tobacco users. 

According to the report, exclusive use of dissolvable tobacco products by an individual would "greatly reduce risk" compared with regular use of cigarettes. It also could reduce population-level disease burden caused by tobacco use if the products decrease the number of people who smoke or don't start smoking. 

"Based on understanding of the delivery of toxins to cigarette smokers, exclusive use of (dissolvable tobacco products) should be less hazardous than regular smoking of cigarettes now marketed in the United States," the report said. 

The committee, however, concluded that the availability of dissolvable tobacco products might make people think tobacco in general is safer. Beyond anecdotal evidence, the committee said it found no information on whether dissolvable tobacco products would make cigarette smokers more likely to quit. 

Most public health experts say there is no safe way to use tobacco and push for people to quit above all else. Others embrace the idea that lower-risk alternatives can improve public health, if they mean fewer people smoke.

There is, of course, no evidence that they are remotely dangerous but they are required to carry the same warnings as chewing tobacco across the Atlantic.

It's still better than the situation in the UK, where they fall within the scope of the EU wide ban on oral tobacco - the same one banning snus anywhere except Sweden - which conveniently leaves the market wide open for Niquitin's medical version of the same nicotine delivery device.

Convenient, huh?

Now, just imagine for a second that there are nasty bastards within the EU who are so anti-tobacco that they believe - or have been lobbied to believe - anything nicotine-related should only be sold by Big Pharma. How do you think they would go about such a task?

Perhaps by classifying a clear and present danger to pharmaceutical profits (e-cigs) as a tobacco product - even though it clearly contains no tobacco - and therefore including it in the TPD and bringing down the mighty Goliath of the tax-funded tobacco control industry on it's ass?

Just saying.

UPDATE: Looks like my presumptions were pretty accurate:

Leak: global death cult @WHO plans to class #ecigs as tobacco, exclude industry, treat vapour as smoke, ban ads #FCTC pic.twitter.com/tyNFLWylYg

— Clive Bates (@Clive_Bates) February 4, 2014

MEP Carl Schlyter's Strange Definition Of Proof

If you haven't yet read it, do go have a look at Chris Snowdon's transcript of a German TV show which highlights the barely-disguised funding of anti-smoking groups by the pharmaceutical industry.

Despite a flood of pharma cash being diverted to organisations sharing mail boxes with the Smokefree Partnership, and one of their advocates - Florence Berteletti-Kemp -  formerly being on the payroll of one of those organisations, some still believe there is no corruption here.

I found this quote particularly hilarious.

MEP Carl Schlyter (Green Party, Sweden): “According to my internet research I was not able to detect any connection to the pharma industry.”

No proud pharma logos sponsoring their conferences; no openly-admitted cash support; he detected absolutely nothing. He is either a piss poor detective or a very fair guy - perhaps he is so scrupulous that he refuses to call out a tobacco control industry arm as being in the pay of big pharma until he sees an audit trail from payment to bank statement.

Well, that would be believable if it weren't for the appalling tosh he spouts when talking about anyone who opposes the TPD.

But Carl Schlyter MEP, health spokesman for the Greens, called it "a shameful day for the European Parliament, as a centre-right majority, led by the EPP group, has done the bidding of the tobacco industry and voted for weaker rules".

A clue as to whom Schlyter classes as the "tobacco industry" is in his EU group's registry of contacts which you can read here.

Out of 95 communications, only 14 are from what you or I would class a tobacco company. The rest are not tobacco companies in any sense of the word. A large majority were independent e-cig companies who have never sold even part of a single tobacco leaf. The rest were packaging companies, trade mark associations, state approved anti-counterfeiting groups ... and even the Good Clinical Practice Alliance.

Apparently, Schlyter can find no evidence whatsoever that Berteletti-Kemp is a pharma stooge despite the payments being clearly evident ... yet he is absolutely certain - beyond any doubt whatsoever - that anyone who opposed the TPD is motivated purely because of payments by the tobacco industry.

This includes, by the way, Adults For Adults who are condemned for sending this letter to MEPs.

We are a group of intellectuals and artists who observe the measures taken by the EU with growing concern. We ask you: do you really believe that it is the role of politicians to issue health warnings? Given mass poverty in Europe, homelessness, rampant youth unemployment and social radicalisation, do you not think that there are other, far more important, complex and pressing political challenges? 

Do you not think that the patronizing treatment of adults at the hands of politicians can have dangerous and damaging consequences? If you treat responsible adults like children who need to be given health warnings, you might open the door to people actually behaving like children at some point in the future. Do you really want that? Would you prefer timid, obedient and servile subjects to autonomous citizens?  

If the issue you raise is the health costs caused by individuals, the situation might quickly escalate as the public begins to name and shame other costly or no longer productive individuals or groups and considers ways of disposing of them. We have already been there in the previous century. Do you really want to play this dangerous game? If you encourage citizens to perceive others solely as a potential threat, you engage in scaremongering and worsen social divisions, all of which erodes Europe’s social cohesion, already under threat, even further. 

Finally, if you treat Europe’s citizens, who have voted you in, as if they were legally incompetent, you ultimately question your own democratic legitimacy – following this logic, you would have been elected by legally incompetent voters.

Quite.

They also sent each MEP this glorious visual indication of short-sighted stupidity.

Totally off-message for the Greens and Socialists, so they're shoved into the pigeon hole as tobacco apologists and ignored by criminal citation of FCTC Article 5.3. But, of course, Schlyter finds no similar agenda with the Smokefree Partnership despite pretty clear pharma funding schemes - they are allowed to lobby with as much big pharma cash as they can stuff in their trouser pockets simply because they agree with Schlyter's EU group. Nope, no corruption there, no siree!

It shows just how magnificent the victory for e-cigs was when Greens and Socialists had their ears so atrociously and undemocratically closed to objectors throughout the entire process.

Public Health Now Further To The Left Than Cuba

MyChoice Australia last month made a very salient observation about the current World Trade Organisation dispute surrounding plain packaging.

Tobacco producing nations, including the Dominican Republic and Cuba, argue that plain packaging laws create illegal obstacles to world trade. 

Yes, Australia’s getting a lesson in free trade courtesy of communists.

Hardly surprising, really. If you were to view the Twitter feeds of Australian tobacco control execs recently, you could be forgiven for thinking that the election of mildly right of centre Tony Abbott as PM was akin to a return to sticking 10 year olds up chimneys and exiling petty criminals to, err, dustbowls on the opposite end of the world.

His crimes, it seems, are opposing carbon taxes and same sex marriage, while also appointing his cabinet on more substantial criteria than if they happen to have a vagina.

Whatever their outward reasoning, though, it's pretty clear that they're mostly just pissed off that a non-lefty government is not likely to shovel cash their way as liberally as they have become accustomed to.

It's a global feature of the health lobby in general. In the UK, for example, we have the likes of Gabriel Scally who advocates "socialism for all"; Sir David Nicholson, former card-carrying member of the Communist Party who now enjoys a comfortable retirement after NHS deaths under his watch and presiding over a culture of suppressing criticism; and Martin McKee who tweets about public health when he has time free from rabble-rousing about globalisation, public sector power, and the evils of capitalism.

Meanwhile, in the freedom-loving USA, public health fanatics are eagerly applauding Cuba for starving their citizens.

A few months ago, we noted a bizarre study in the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) that suggested that the famine caused by the repressive Communist Cuban Castro regime was good for people’s health. Harvard’s food-scold-in-residence, Walter Willett, commented positively on the outcome of state-sponsored famine, suggesting the study showed “powerful evidence that a reduction in overweight and obesity would have major population-wide benefits.” 

Now, the study authors (and Willett, presumably) indicated that they didn’t support the dictatorial methods, just the state-controlled outcome. But now Willett has gone a step further. He recently told a Harvard conference that “children are being exploited, same as sweatshops” and declared obesity “a natural consequence of a capitalist food supply.”

Now, agree with their politics or not, all of the above have one thing in common. None of them need to be elected in order to influence at the highest level, just like their Godhead, the WHO. Exactly what dictators throughout history have always aspired to.

Through public health, they've found a way to interfere in the lives of everyone on the planet fiscally, economically and socially without ever having to ask the public for approval. If you object further, or things don't quite go to their master plan, bullying, smears and ad hominem is usually enough to scare politicians into jumping when they're told to.

And tomorrow, an unelected EU Commissioner's Tobacco Products Directive - drafted under a long shadow of corruption and designed to completely ignore any consultation which disagreed with its pre-determined positions - will slime its way past plenary with the help of the socialist bloc(k) vote. Funny, that.

Wherever he is right now, I expect Stalin is applauding in admiration.

UPDATE: Thanks to a fellow jewel robber by e-mail, here's supporting evidence via the Twitter feed of  John Ashton, head of the UK Faculty of Public Health. Wow!