Sales of tobacco-free cigarettes have boomed worldwide since bans on smoking in public places were introduced.
Campaigners say the growing popularity of e-cigarettes could undermine years of anti-smoking efforts, with particular concerns about promotion to children and non-smokers.
Research suggests around 1.3m smokers and ex-smokers in the UK use the products, which are designed to replicate smoking behaviour without the use of tobacco.
So, that’s 1.3m people who are using a product that is less harmful to their health… These scum are now showing their true colours; it is not about health, it never was about health, it is about prohibition, it always was.
And of course we get that old canard about children. Anyone know any children who have bought an e-cig? Anyone? And can anyone recall any promotion aimed at children? Anyone?
Lies, damned lies and distorted statistics. I.e. even more lies.
Jeremy Mean of The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said the government had concluded that e-cigarettes currently on the market do not meet appropriate standards of safety, quality and efficacy.
He said “levels of contamination” had been found in the products and some were poorly manufactured.
Ah, yes, that old chestnut. It has been comprehensively debunked elsewhere, but just a reminder; any contaminants are of such minute quantities, they can be discounted, but never let reality get in the way of a good bit of scaremongering, eh?
Scum, the lot of them. They should be taken out and strung up from the nearest lamp post. Then their heads put on spikes outside Traitor’s Gate, while the ravens peck out their eyeballs. These evil people are trying to effectively ban a product that is less harmful than tobacco and is helpful to people trying to give it up. It isn’t about health. It was never about health. It is and always has been, about control.
Scum, the lot of them.
Did I say that already?
There will be no compulsory licensing of the products until 2016 but until then they are not recommended for use, he said.
“We can’t recommend these products because their safety and quality is not assured, and so we will recommend that people don’t use them,” he told a news conference.
Looks like now is a good time to get them in, then… Given that he is lying and can be easily proven to be a liar, his recommendation isn’t worth a dog turd.
This little gem from Dr Mike Knapton of the British Heart Foundation.
“Marketing of these products must now be closely monitored to ensure non-smokers and children don’t end up using them.”
I am a non-smoker. Why would I want to use one? Why will monitoring them closely stop me accidentally using one? And if I did decide that I would like to use one (intentionally); as an adult, isn’t that up to me? What a fucking cretin.
I think the MHRA have held out as long as they possibly can on this, and now seem to be clining to a hope that the EU will change the situation for them under the expected 2014 tobacco products directive.
If you look at the responses to the MHRA consultation, it was the tobacco and pharma companies that were in favour of a quick prohibition. Some health professionals were, but many – including ASH – wanted a more measured approach to regulation.
Shamefully, it was my profession that took the most hypocritcal position. The Trading Standards Institute work hard lobbying central government to delegate the enforcement of regulation, such as product safety regulation – to their local authority members. So when something like e-cigs come along, a fast growth market which entailed their LA members reading and understanding a lot of pages of EU chemicals regulation, you’d think they would be happy. Yet they lobbied to have them declared a ‘medicinal product’ with immediate affect!
“Some health professionals were, but many – including ASH – wanted a more measured approach to regulation.”
ASH wanted exactly this. that is why they have welcomed the approach. They always wanted e-cigs to be medicalised.
So, we firstly have a product (cigs) that are completely legal but people get upset about others using their own money to buy them, so they’re not exactly banned, but you can’t use them anywhere. Then someone comes out with a substitute that’s healthier and doesn’t give off the odours and harmful secondary smoke that the original product does. Instead of being grateful that someone has come up with a sensible solution, these are going to be banned (well, pretty much banned) as well.
Where exactly is the logic in all this?
Logic? That’s easy. It’s never been about health, just corporatism. Tobacco control doesn’t bite the hand that feeds them. If they were invented by pharma, they’d be given out willy-nilly by GPs by now.
Don’t think most vapers i have spoken to tonight are going to go down without a fight. Might just be a feeling but I don’t think they will aloow the government or anyone else to dictate to them what they can or can’t do with their lives.
I think you’re right. It’s the last straw for me with these interfering shitheels. The public barely stirred with the smoking ban, but this is so absurd I think a fight is in hand.
I’m somehow reminded of all the hullabaloo about fox hunting.
Amid much outcry, its opponents get a ban, but that’s not enough; even though the hunts no longer seek live quarry, the antis are still crawling out of the undergrowth on all sides
They might claim that they choose to spend their Saturdays squatting in muddy hedges and frightening horses on the offchance of protecting a fox from Tarquin and his chums, but I can’t help feeling it’s really because their prime motivation has always been to strike a blow at ‘posh people’; the foxes were merely the opportunity.
Well written Longrider! 🙂
Macheath, you wrote, “They might claim that they choose to spend their Saturdays squatting in muddy hedges and frightening horses on the offchance of protecting a fox from Tarquin and his chums, but I can’t help feeling it’s really because their prime motivation has always been to strike a blow at ‘posh people’; the foxes were merely the opportunity.”
Yep. Same deal regarding smoking bans in parks and posh outdoor malls: great way to get rid of the homeless bums without appearing to be targeting the poor homeless bums. Lets you do your dirty work while still wearing your bright shiny halo.
Scum.
– MJM
The motivation was to strike a blow at ‘posh people’. But like everything the left attack, they attack the wrong targets. That’s because the left have high emotional intelligence but no real intelligence. Fox hunting is not a posh hobby/sport. Many fox hunters are ordinary middle class people who enjoy horse riding. Before the ban it was a social occasion which farmers encouraged as it kept down the fox numbers. Now the farmers have to hire hunters to shoot the foxes.
It’s the same mind set as people like Eddie Izzard attacking “posh” olympic sports such as rowing and dressage. The most publicly visible rowing event is the oxford/cambridge boat race which must obviously be only posh people because only posh people go to those universities. Ignore the fact that the left have been pushing for all classes to go to universities like Cambridge and Oxford. Dressage is just such a useless sport that it must only be posh people who do it because they are the only ones who can waste their time doing it.
Quite right – in fact, I’d go further; despite frequent accusations of ignorance, I’d suggest that, as well as knowing that hunting is not confined to the wealthy or landed gentry, urban animal rights campaigners are well aware of the number of ordinary rural people employed directly or indirectly as a result of hunting.
In both cases, I strongly suspect the attitude is that, by supporting a hunt, whether as joint participants or, as the left would see it, servile lackeys, these people have somehow become class traitors and thus valid targets.
Let’s be honest, the aim of this tentative step toward regulation isn’t even about handing the funds of the potentially lucrative e-cig market over to Big Pharma – it’s about handing control of e-cigs over to Big Pharma so that they can then simply stop them from ever hitting the market by just not manufacturing them. I don’t think we’ll get to the taxation stage – the government’s had its fingers burned on that one already and doesn’t want to get dependent (again) on something that it might later want to do away with at the stroke of a pen. This is about stubbing out (excuse the pun) the entire e-cigarette market completely so that the only choice is smoking real cigarettes or not smoking at all. End of.
Ponder on that, all you vapers out there. You’re now a more endangered species than we “real” smokers are. At least the Exchequer still needs us to balance its books …
Have I seen children using e-cigs? Nope. But have I seen children using real cigs. Hell yes. When I go to work I drive past a high school and many times at the pelican crossing I see children (well teenageers) with cigarettes. And it’s mainly the girls, not boys, who have them.
I would suggest the furore is less to do with harmful effects of the chemicals in e-cogarettes, or the possibility of children buying them, than the fact that Government is losing a major shed load of tax as the sales of cigarettes decline. The only way they can make this up is by declaring e-cigarettes a medicine. That will be fine for the over 60’s and the benefit claimants who get free prescriptions, and politicians who can claim the cost back from the taxpayer, but will leave the manufacturers facing millions in costs to have their product accepted and once this is done, the rest of the country facing high prices so the companies can recover those costs. The obvious solution is day trips to the continent.to e-cig alley in Adinkerke. In the meantime, cigarette manufacturers sales will increase, negating the efforts of the anti-smoking Nazis. I wonder whether politicians are naturally stupid before they are selected or have to go through a central lobotomy during the selection process?