Crucial tobacco vote in the European Parliament looms

good blog here examining the situation of cancer charities causing cancer.

http://www.clivebates.com/?p=1611#more-1611

Good summary of possible futures for e-cigs

http://www.clivebates.com/?p=1586

So far CRUK policy has been very unhelpful, is there anyone within CRUK who has the vision to grasp this potential massive health prize?

CRUK are through their views supporting tobacco in its efforts to remain the main source of nicotine on the market.

Remember, if democracy fails completely and e-cigs are medicalised, then ALL EXISTING PRODUCTS will be banned.

Stop & think, do the right thing

Far better and more detailed link to the Times post I reported above is shown in the same authors blog here http://t.co/j7hBtDMvwB. Very interesting comments concerning Pharma lobbying and involvement at the end as a footnote.

Overall sums up the situation v.well

Totally agree. It’s a small window of opportunity which would allow CRUK and others to retain some degree of credibility but, sadly, I fear that pressure from those who provide a lot of funding preclude that possibility. Money talks!

This article in the Times(paywall unfortunately) nicely puts forward the case for exercising caution in relation to medicinal regulation http://t.co/2AX7wY0xv9 as usual the comments contained are of interest .

Within a very short period of time there will be a trialogue where the Parliament reps , Council of Ministers, Commission all need to agree on where the contentious issues in the TPD need to be agreed upon .

The issue that will cause most angst is the Q of e-cigarettes even at this very late stage CR UK could signal a change in its position . The Parliamentary compromise amendment #170 adopted contains all of the necessary safeguards that CR UK were advocating previously , this is a position they could default to AND signal to the Health Minister this is their new position .

Inaction at this stage will not be greeted with much goodwill towards CR UK in the coming months or years . Already many previous supporters have indicated this I ask again can you modify your position ?

Still silent on the issue CRUK?.

You have less than 24hrs to make a difference, stop this insane policy that puts profit before lives.

Do the right thing

Unless events show a rapid change over the next few days it looks like there may be a majority vote for amendment 170 which appears to have broad support amongst MEP. Amend 170 would preserve some of the aspects of vaping that users want, crucially it would mean that in the UK (although probs in other member states) we would still have e-cigs available.
Naturally even if plenary votes in favour that is far from the end of the process

Amongst the many other (but associated) events that have recently happened is this study http://t.co/RB9v0RkFsV just published today , and the French anti smoking org OFT joining forces with the French Consumers Association (AIDUCE) to oppose medicinal regulation .

It now needs CRUK and ASH to start to revisit their policies and try to embrace fully the e-cig and not view this at all with suspicion and caution.

Well it looks like there may be a hope to save lives after all, the largest political group in the European Parliament, the EPP have indicated they will be supporting an amendment that DOES NOT medicalise e-cigs.

It is not ideal and has some restrictions but if passed it means that I and many others will not be forced back to tobacco.

The link is here ( if you open in chrome it translates ) http://www.lokalkompass.de/menden/leute/e-zigarette-kompromiss-am-8-oktober-d349809.html

CRUK, this could be the “out” you should have been looking for, if the TPD does not medicalise e-cigs then the MRHA proposals will be thrown out in court as has happened in every similar court case. You still have a chance to make a difference, you could even at this late stage review your policy and call on all MEP’s to oppose medicalisation at the TPD vote.

Do the right thing

As expressed by others, I cannot see any logical reason for you not to support the development and use of electronic cigarettes. These devices will save lives. If they are allowed to survive in their current form. To this end, I will also be cancelling my financial support of your organisation. I have supported you on a monthly basis for over ten years; if you cannot apply common sense, I can not provide my hard earned money.

Do one decent thing in your life and recomend to MPs/MEPs to remove E cigarettes from the TPD, then you can take your battle to the tobacco industry, but leave us alone.
Millions of vapours WILL REMEMBER

In 2008 CRUK were very anti medicalisation of e-cigs and the reasons they outlined mirrored many of the comments on this blog.

There are only a few reasons why such a policy change would be intiated by CRUK;

1. New research shows that e-cigs are nearly as dangerous as tobacco
2. pressure from Big tobacco companies who are likley to inherit the e-cig industry from smaller companies
3. Pressure from Pharmacutical companies to protect theoir profits from NRT and cancer treatments.

Reasons 1 & 2 seem somewhat unlikley and as CRUK refuse to provide an alternative good reason point 3 seems to be the only explanation left.

Why are CRUK supporting a policy that could kill millions simply to protect their paymasters profits?.

Remember this fact, if CRUK get their way – ALL EXISTING PRODUCTS WILL BE BANNED.

Stop & think, do the right thing.

It beggars belief that anyone pro-porting to campaign for a reduction in cancer-causing activities would support a directive imposing a ban on vaping…which is probably the greatest thing to happen in order to encourage smokers to give up cigarettes.

Bans don’t work, packet designs don’t work, price controls don’t work – giving people a healthier, enjoyable, far safer option option has and will.

I vape using mech mods, rebuildable atomisers and DIY juices sourced from pharmaceutical grade suppliers. It is my free choice to do so and the research clearly demonstrates that the danger is negligible.

It would be nice to see some responce from Cancer Research on these replies .

This is truly bizarre – do you have a glitch?

And it’s gone again – make up your minds CRUK- no swearing in mine either Gordon Beard – CRUK is getting like a virgin on the verge! Maybe overworked bombarding MEPs on Twitter?

2 civil – zero swearing comments posted by myself yesterday -still awaiting moderation ?

I really do hope that censorship of genuine comments is not in force here

It’s back – sorry CRUK

Wow! My last comment must have been up there all of 3 minutes – hope someone had time to read it, must have struck a very sensitive spot. And not a swear-word in it.
Will stick it on fb instead.

I visualise CRUK and a lot of other charities walking around, fingers in ears, going ” la-la-la-la – can’t hear you”.Yes, they can; they know that what has been posted here is the truth. We, the vapers who have been willing lab-rats for years, SMEs who have pioneered the emergence of the first viable alternative to the tobacco cigarette ever, we have all been shouting it from the roof-tops. The Pharmaceuticals had access to the technology at the same time as Small Enterprises but, without more Government funding were unwilling to take it on. Now that the spade-work has been done they want to snatch it under their umbrella and emasculate it to a point where it would be no more effective than the failed NRTs.
To some, everything is about money; human life and well-being appears to come a very poor second. It’s time digits were extracted from earholes, because the next time someone comes rattling a tin, I, for one, will be very careful to examine what it says on that tin.
Vapers will win – we can’t afford to lose and we have very long memories.

This stinks more than the propaganda ads you’ve made using donation money given to you in good faith to fund cancer research, my blood was boiling when I saw you using children to read the scripts given to them saying things like “I like this one because it’s pink” and “I like the pictures!” etcetera.

I didn’t start smoking because I thought it looked cool, or because of the shape/colour of a cigarette packet, or because it had a picture of someone with throat cancer on it, I knew fully well that they caused death and disease too. I started smoking through experimentation, because it was easy to steal the odd cigarette from my parents packet, also because cigarettes were so cheap and it was easy to fool the staff at the petrol station that I looked 16 at the time. I also experimented with weed, LSD, magic mushrooms in my youth too and none of them came in a shiny packet or had “nice” scary pictures on them either.

You have it totally wrong why you “never smokers/anti tobacco campaigners” say smokers start, the gateway arguments etcetera. Rather than dream up excuses of why you think children and adults start smoking tobacco, your kind should research why smokers really start.

The only real way to get people off of tobacco is to continue to price it out of their and their kids range while keeping inventions like e-cigs that work to replace the habit to a much safer one.

An average e-cig starter kit costs around £30, through self regulation the suppliers said 18+, they use child safe bottle caps, chip compliance and pharma grade ingredients, existing trading standards laws ensure they provide good quality products, education of good safety practices when charging batteries, for example not leaving them unattended, in the sun, how to clean the contacts go a long way to ensure minimum venting incidents occur too.

Figures released last week show that smoking prevalence has only fallen by 1% since 2007.This TPD estimates an equivalent reduction of 0.6% over five years.

All the sticks have been tried and have failed.Is it beyond the realm of human intelligence to try the carrot?

Excuse me Andrew, what about the elephant in the room???

E-cigarettes have the potential to save millions of lives in the fight against cancer. But you want to see them banned through this TPD?

Why on earth would you totally ignore this? Inconvenient truth perhaps?

Shame on you CRUK!

The TPD is a joke, tobacco products readily available & with very little restriction. Want a much safer alternative like Snus or ecigarettes then hard luck ones banned & the others going to be regulated out of existence. The costs of getting an MA are prohibitive as many vendors who have inquired about the costs from the MHRA have found. I can only assume CRUK wants lots of cancer patients to study as they don’t seem to have any interest in harm reduction.

@Dragonmum too true , why the MP/MEP need to include it in the TPD is baffling . Clive Bates @clivebates.com has written huge amounts on this and even to the most sceptical of people makes enormous sense and brings clarity to a hugely complicated TPD + amendments

nicely crafted blogs . .reported today that once again puts the TPD in context

1 courtesy of Joanne Lincoln http://t.co/VHrHeTfDTB

which includes a link to todays Dave Dorn comments

2 Dr Gilbert Ross http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/10/the-eus-new-tobacco-directive-protecting-cigarette-markets-killing-smokers/

Murder by proxy.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing”

Electronic cigarettes will not work under medicine regulation because they do not deliver a measured dose. This is also one of the reasons that they do work. This TDP will therefore see all ecigs disappear to be replaced by some thing that is an electronic cigarette in name only.
CRUK will have to live with the fact that they actively participated in over one million UK citizens returning to smoking.
Please change your mind CRUK! Not just for the sake of us that have switched from smoking to vaping but for all those smokers who haven’t switched yet and those future smokers who could avoid it altogether.

Yet more blogposts that totally reject e-cig inclusion in the TPD are listed here …

1 courtesy of Dave Dorn http://t.co/XYT7tN5Mdy

2 http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/10/the-eus-new-tobacco-directive-protecting-cigarette-markets-killing-smokers/

The MEP who oppose meds regs are attempting to arrive at a compromise amendment (must be tabled by 4/10) that will hopefully defeat the present proposals however we know that to get enough support a watering down of our freedom will be the price . @CR_UK is along with a few of its
Astroturf followers aggressively lobbying MEP via Twitter
this really is not what this organisation should be involved in yet again doing itself few favours.

I am discusted in your response re the TPD ,and although I have supported yourselfs with donations over the last 15 years ,which has amounted to many hundreds of pounds of hard earned money.
I will no longer be donating any more money to line your pocket any longer,I assume that you obtain plenty from your pharma friends.

Thank you Robert Innes but I think it’s been pulled. Just saw a glaring error in my Sept 24th post. Claims against Pfizer for Champix casualties is short by several noughts! The figure is said to be $273 million plus a contingency for a further $15 million. I must have been very tired at the time of typing.

Dragonman, I have encountered similar problems. It happens when a post has to be moderated. You open the page and it has gone. Try reloading the page – it may reappear. I am a bit red faced on ‘licencing cigarettes opportunities and risks’ where in my impatience, the post comes up two or three times.

Laugh at me if I’m wrong, but is CRUK supporting legislation that will reduce the effectiveness of an e-cig to the point of near uselessness, and render it subject to medical licencing with all its attendant costs and time, whilst allowing the real villain in all this, the tobacco product, to remain on sale freely and widely throughout the land!?
If so, you have in my eyes lost all credibility.
A comment from CRUK would be most welcome here to see how you try to wriggle out of this and put your case to us so that we can see exactly why you would support medicalising the single most important technological advancement, already protected through law, and which has already enabled over 1 MILLION UK smokers give up their dependance on tobacco, which is the toxic and cancerous part of nicotine addiction.

Andy, 20-a-day smoker for 30+years, vaper for 13 months.

“The proposals include:….

rules for herbal cigarettes and new nicotine-containing products such as electronic cigarettes.”

The proposals amount to a ban on all current electronic cigarettes and yet you left that out that information and hoped no one would notice.

This legislation will kill millions, as the banning of snus after a similar knee jerk reaction from do gooders already has.

Thank you again Gordon.. Worth reading and after CRUK’s attitude as displayed on ‘E cigarettes the unanswered questions and Licencing e cigarettes opportunities and risks,’ totally believable. You know, before becoming involved with this blog, I would have dismissed that article – not now!

Robert I think that would be an excellent idea to e-mail the other orgs who I would think have changed their stance in a very similar hypocritical way .

Discovered this from another very unhappy person 12 months ago prior to TPD meds regs et al

http://t.co/ZXJD1mSVfm

A few home truths exposed there maybe ?

Thank you Gordon. Your additional link is appreciated. I am thinking perhaps it might be an idea to use this stated position by ASH and CRUK as the basis for an email to every organisation on the list?

Excellent comments @robert innes just to maybe add a little extra to this .

credit to @dodderer http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/prod_consump/groups/cr_common/@nre/@pol/documents/generalcontent/crukmig_1000ast-3355.pdf

The above highlights CR_UK position in 2008 and naturally the wording is virtually identical to that of ASH 2008.

What has changed since 2008 , was the carefully crafted and seemingly sensible and proportional position of that date totally invalid. It would take a slippery wordsmith to be able to wriggle away from that applying a scientific reason for the changes .

The only viable conclusion that I can draw is the totally unexpected success of e-cigs with its disruptive effect on the existing status quo,

Jeremy Hunt today announced his support for the TPD and in particular that e-cigs should be regulated as a medicine citing incorrectly that its not a ban and that light touch regs will result in readily available products . This is the position that ASH and CR_UK have managed to get us to from 2008 WHY ? and I repeat again WHAT HAS CHANGED?

I have come across this eye opener…” (Posted on other pages) BEYOND Smoking Kills:”(October 2008) presented by ASH and part funded by CRUK.(Note the date) The paper is endorsed by just about every health body in the UK. (Or, too many to mention.) http://www.ash.org.uk/beyondsmokingkills I would like though to draw your attention to one little gem.

In section 8, entitled, “Alternatives to Smoking we find, “…Smokers are addicted to nicotine but are harmed by the tar and toxins in tobacco smoke. It is therefore, possible for smokers who are currently unable or unwilling to quit to satisfy their nicotine craving at much lower risk by switching to pure nicotine products (which, like the current medicinal products on the market, contain only nicotine and not other tobacco derivatives). Although these products are not 100% safe, they are many orders of magnitude safer than smoking. (Now for the ‘good’ bit.) The article continues… “Currently pure nicotine products are not attractive to smokers as direct replacements for cigarettes as they do not mimic the speed and intensity of nicotine intake that a cigarette provides. Regulation difficulties inhibit the development of more efficient and effective pure nicotine products. As a result, the most toxic nicotine products – cigarettes – are barely regulated while the safest products – medicinal nicotine – are highly regulated. If they are to compete with tobacco products, pure nicotine products must be sold on equal terms or better: pricing should favour pure nicotine products over tobacco. Public education is also needed as many smokers (and health professionals) have a poor understanding of the relative safety of pure nicotine products including nicotine replacement therapy”

Oh boy! Talk about a U turn! Talk about hypocrisy! Talk about double standards! This is before the huge take up of e cigarettes. They use the argument …orders of magnitude safer.” Now they ignore it. Then it was ok to complain that,…

“Regulation difficulties inhibit the development of more efficient and effective pure nicotine products.”

Now, because it is not the product they support, it is all change.
Develop a strategy and an appropriate regulatory structure to improve the acceptability, attractiveness and accessibility of pure nicotine products for use as an alternative to smoking for those who are currently unable or unwilling to quit.

Encourage commercial development of pure nicotine products designed for long-term use as a replacement for smoking.

Develop a communications strategy to counter public misunderstanding of the health impacts of nicotine. This should promote nicotine replacement therapy for quitting and encourage the longer term use of pure nicotine products as alternatives to tobacco.

Tax pure nicotine products at the lowest rate of VAT.

Evaluate the cost-effectiveness of providing pure nicotine products free on prescription to smokers
for as long as they are unable or unwilling to quit.

Increase investment in research into the long-term impacts of nicotine.

NOTE:” Pure nicotine products are products which, like the current medicinal products on the market, contain only
nicotine and not other tobacco derivatives and which offer heavily addicted smokers the rewards of nicotine
at a greatly reduced health risk.” So e cigarettes DO fall under this definition, except that they are not medicinal.

The complete U turn, the perfect hypocrisy.

Interesting read for those that think e-cigs might be for you :-)
http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/cigarette-phaseout-considered-as-trial-tests-if-vapour-safer-20130914-2trj1.html

Why on earth would CRUK want to enter into a field beyond its remit of Cancer Research unless arm twisted into such by a third party or two. I would suggest you stop play silly games with Pfizer and get your act together.

This trespass into a totally unrelated field of ‘nicotine’ dependence has not gone noticed in government circles btw and if anything went south you’d be directly in the firing line… The cancer sufferers of the UK cannot risk that eventually, please desist from attacking a smoking cessation aid in desperation to keep funding from a powerful ally as this will not work.

Tobacco is carcinogenic, we know that…. nicotine is not…we know that too! You know these are tow separate issues in the same way drinking Vodka is related to but certainly not the only behaviour one engages in if dependant upon alcohol.

My monthly donation will be revoked if the TPD is passed. For all the good it will do I will instead donate this small sum to another charity entirely. In addition my business donates to both Heart disease, The red Cross and Cancer Research… Cancer Research will be revoked as a donation there too… you are pissing off the business community nightly I might add.

Whether this directive is passed or not it will fail…and I’ll be back here on the 9th to tell you why…and it comes down to the square peg and round hole thing… after that you will look like fools and your funding will take a hammering. All because you are too stupid and belligerent to stick to your own remit CRUK and you know this… point to one supportive comment from those here … go on, I dare you… . So be it!

The Dam bursts on the 9th of October and your donations and funding town lie beneath it!

I long ago stopped my monthly donation to CRUK. Your organisation is a disgrace. If the Charity Commission did its job, you would be stripped of your charitable status. On your website can be found the EU lung cancer incidence and smoking prevalence statistics. Ever wondered why Swedish males have the lowest of both in the developed world? An organisation whose business in cancer might just be a little bit curious. Supporting measures which effectively ban what we know as the ecig will make you responsible for future lung cancer deaths. We are not going to pussy-foot around any longer. Your policies are killing people.

Like others here I give you notice that I will no longer donate any money to CRUK.

In addition I will endeavour to educate those to express a desire to do so, that CRUK want to neuter what appears to be the single most effective product to aid those who no longer wish to smoke to do so, thus condemning a so far untold number of people to an early grave.

Once again cruk fail to deliver the truth. Just their version of it. The vote was not moved forward it was put back to the original intended date. It was the proponents of the tpd who tried to rush it through before elected MEPs had the time to have it fully translated and to read it properly. Then they cry foul when MEPs put it back to October.

CRUK policy on comments;

“Comments policy
Please do leave comments. The whole purpose of this blog is to engage in a dialogue about cancer research.”

“Dialogue” normally means two way communication, any chance of CRUK replying to our concerns?

Smoking kills – stopping people stop smoking kills just as effectively

Well hello it’s appeared as if by magic!

I’ve already told you what I think – did you not like it? Too close for comfort? I can’t find it in the comments !!!

Quote “Come October 8th, we hope these efforts will be rewarded with a vote for common sense” .

Vapers are hoping the exact same thing, if common sense and truth rule then Article 18 will be removed from the TPD.

A monstrous perversion of Public Health Objectives, says Gerry Stimson; yes, it’s all of that but, in my opinion, it’s much more. It is a cold-blooded, deliberate attempt by those who depend on disease for their profits to suppress a product that offers the first viable alternative to a killer product. And that is precisely what the TPD is intended to do.
CRUK. BHF,and others – all are aware of this. Given their alleged concern with Public Health one might have expected their whole-hearted support for e-cigs; sadly, the tentacles of the giant Pharmaceuticals have a long reach and carry big purses. Is this why they choose to support the ineffective NRT programmes and anti-smoking drugs like varenicline? For which, incidentally, Pfizer are paying out something in the region of $300,000 in claims for the fatalities and near-fatalities it has caused, and which is still available on prescription in the UK – MHRA approved of course.
And they still ask us to donate while ignoring the obvious!
I don’t think so.

You are corrupt, your reasoning is fallacious, your stance on vaping is unsupportable. I am not given to writing comments on blogs(apart from a number of entries on this one) but your position on a personal vaporisers cannot be left to pass without comment. I began vaping 5 months ago. Before quitting smoking I spent more time researching the topic of vaping than I did on my degree dissertation, as I was scared of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. I was surprised and encouraged by the wealth of good scientific research in favour of the relative benefits of vaping compared to smoking. By current reckoning vaping is 95 to 99% less harmful than smoking, so much safer in fact that vaping could save the lives of 5 million people alive today. Conversely attempts to impose a de facto ban on vaping will cost these lives. Having satisfied myself that Vaping was my way out of smoking, I discover that the TPD has taken Personal Vaporisers into its remit and wishes to bring them under medical regulation, for the reasons outlined eloquently elsewhere, and by the admission of regulators themselves this amounts to a ban.This to me was heartbreaking and very frightening and has moved me to anger on many occasions recently. Again I was moved to research, what arguments are in favour of prohibition, the answer it seems is none. No creditable research can offer a single argument as to why there should be any prohibition measures against vaping. As the science does not support your stance we can only believe that politics money and entrenched ideology must. You have heard all the arguments as to why you should not support article 18, you have been challenged to respond, you have failed, You will not answer because you cannot. Instead you engage in self serving propaganda, you plough on with your quit or die philosophy and your mother knows best insanity. You wilfully misinform your supporters and try to con the less interested into supporting your ends. Why? Just once, tell us properly, why; On a personal note Andrew Hollingsworth, this must be a personal low for you, you wrote this garbage, you own it and its consequences. Should CRUK ever become the vangaurd of a one party state you have secured your place as propaganda minister. Nice one Joseph.

Here we go again. Just noticed my post has gone missing.
If you poke your head over the top CRUK people are going to shoot.

Bearing in mind your ridiculous stance on ecigs I am regretfully withdrawing my financial support of your charity.

They don’t cause cancer. Tobacco does. You should be positively encouraging electronic vaporisers not supporting organisations that want to regulate them out of existence.

E cigs have for me proved to be the only method that worked to stop me from smoking tobacco. 20 a day for twenty years and I stopped overnight.

They have such potential to reduce the harm caused by the worldwide use of tobacco.

Concentrate on attacking tobacco and leave electronic cigarettes alone. By definition they’re outside your remit.

I have raised money for Cancer Research for a number of years. If you support the whole TPD without campaigning that over-regulation of nicotine vapourising devices be dropped then I shall raise not another penny. This is working against harm reduction, which is shameful.

It’s ridiculous that the TPD messes about with palin packets, banning flavourings and novelty shapes etc when it also single-handedly destroys E-cigs which are capable of doing far more good for the anti-smoking movement than any punitive legislation towards tobacco can do.
You do realise that nicotine is addictive don’t you? Therefore punitive measures will do very little good to stem the habit but offering an alternative like E-cigs will be hugely successful.
E-cigarettes shouldn’t even be anywhere near the Tobacco products directive as they don’t contain any tobacco.
It’s hammering a square peg into a round hole and is nothing short of the Pharma industry trying to seize control of a burgeoning market that’s in direct competition with their NRT products by influencing the regulators of tobacco.
It’s a scam, a flim-flam and a way of snake oil salesman of selling more products that are over priced and under successful.
Public health, once upon a time, used to be about public health.
Not anymore I guess and I’m ashamed that CRUK are part of it all.

I would ask everyone to go to this blog and take the time needed to read everything – including the links.

Here are 300+ criticisms of CRUK’s stance on e cigarettes. The organisation will not, cannot answer. The arguments presented are done so, written from the heart and well backed up with reference and scientific fact. Here you will see the lies and myths, the misrepresentation and exaggerations exposed. Here you will see the use of big tobacco tactics, of which CRUK is so critical, in action – Big pharma and its minions seem to be enjoying the use of these very strategies. It is here where you will learn about double standards, and encounter a very perfect form of hypocrisy. Go to the following link…

http://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2013/06/12/licensing-e-cigarettes-opportunities-and-risks/#comment-13046

The TPD in its current state will require ecigarettes to have a costly medicines licence, despite the fact that they’re not medicines. This will remove all current devices from the shelves and only organisations with very big pockets will be able to bear the financial and administrative burden imposed by the proposed new regulations. The plethora of flavours and strengths, which makes them so successful will disappear.
What will the current (estimated) 1.3 million ecigarette users do? Give up? A few will. Buy an expensive inhaler? I doubt it. Establish some kind of illegal and unregulated black market? Possible. Go back to smoking cigarettes? The vast majority I suspect.
Well done CRUK, hope you feel like you’ve made a positive contribution to the health of the nation/EU with this.

Really saddened that CRUK seem to support the move to force many people to switching back to smoking the cancer sticks, are you worried that if less people smoke that means less money coming into funding cancer research?.

As mentioned the proposed regulation will not make it easier to obtain the safer alternative we all know today, it will ban the useful devices, Mr Mean has confirmed they will not get a marketing authorisation.

This regulation will give the whole market to tobacco and pharma companies, it will put cigarette look-a-like devices into the hands of 12 year old+ children, these devices will be REDUCED to the same useless effectiveness as NRT such as gum and patches pushing e-cigs from 90% effective to 7% quit rates.

I have been smoke-free for 1 year now thanks to having a proper e-cig device, I successfully started at 36mg/ml nicotine and have reduced that down to 18mg/ml over time, the vast range of devices (batteries, atomisers, cleromisers, tanks et cetera) gave me the ability to tailor the e-cig to my preferences and my needs, the diverse variety of flavours has been wonderful and refreshing and helped too. My health has improved, I noticed positive changes within days of switching.

Vaping will not normalise smoking, it can only normalise vaping and help others see there is a clear choice to making the switch to a much safer and healthier alternative, it’s not a gateway to smoking but one away from smoking.

I do not want to be forced to switch back, I never want to go back but the proposed regulation will force me and many back to an unhealthy lifestyle of smoking and reduce our lifespan by many many years, the 4mg/ml expensive B.A.T. tampon/cig-a-like will not work for us as well as many others who will try them, this directive if passed will be a death sentence for millions for generations to come.

This link http://www.iea.org.uk/publications/research/free-market-solutions-in-health-the-case-of-nicotine, should explain to you why your biased ideology is short sighted, stupid, patronising and dangerous. Shame on you all.

If e-cigs were removed from the TPD it would go through relatively easily.

Why are CRUK supporting a de facto ban on e-cigs and in doing so threatening the whole TPD, of which they are ardent advocates?

CRUK were positive supporters of e-cigs and anti medicalisation in 2008, what has changed?

There are 349 comments on this blog entry of CRUK

http://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2013/06/12/licensing-e-cigarettes-opportunities-and-risks/#comment-13046.

Apart from 2 or 3 replies from CRUK EVERY single comment is against medicalisation, are CRUK really so arrogant that they still believe they are correct?.

This stance does your reputation no favours, you are an organisation who’s aim is to prevent cancer and you will not explain why you wish to effectively ban e-cigs, disgusting

Oh dear oh dear CRUK here we go again.

Seems rather Odd that a Cancer Charity has chosen to promote Rules governing Electronic Cigarettes which as far as i am aware has no studies linking them to be a cause of Cancer .
The more cynical amongst us could hardly be forgiven for thinking that the Big Drug Companies who Fund Cancer Research may have some input into this article ? Perrhaps I may so bold to suggest Companies who produce NRT products ?

“◾rules for herbal cigarettes and new nicotine-containing products such as electronic cigarettes.”

Actually I believe you mean a BAN on electronic cigarettes – a ban which will sentence millions of smokers to death from cancer. Given your mission statement should you really be supporting that?

Take the ecigs out of the TDP and then you would have
a common sense way forward, plain and simple fact !

Any measures that can help to prevent harm from smoking is great, but has anyone really asked the big Pharmaceutical companies what they feel about 20% of their global sales disappearing when e-cigarettes become the universal safer method of obtaining nicotine? No one likes the tobacco companies obviously, but the pharmaceutical companies logically stand to be the biggest losers if smoking harmful tobacco is eliminated, as 20% of their global sales result from treating smoking related diseases.

Many casual observers wonder why, when there is so much widespread evidence within the UK that e-cigarettes are transforming smokers lives and delivering a far safer alternative to harmful tobacco smoking that medical regulation for e-cigarettes is even being considered within the TPD. It’s not as if they aren’t already regulated by the EU as they already have 17 EU product and safety directives to comply with.

The NHS stop smoking schemes have generated 146,000 successful smoking quitters over the past 10 years according to their own PR at a cost of over 1 billion pounds, yet in under half the time over one million UK smokers now use e-cigs without any cost to the public.

The health of smokers are caught in the middle of an ideological and financial battle between big pharmaceutical who don’t want e-cigs to replace harmful tobacco and big tobacco who everyone hates so anything that may look like smoking must be controlled. It’s a complete mess and it’s not helped by the simple and perhaps most important aspect regarding e-cigarettes in that legally they can never be a medical product, unless health claims are made, as has been confirmed by 7 EU courts and the US Court of Appeal.

Move e-cigarettes out of the TPD and the TPD will be passed. Keep them in, ignore all legal opinion and is it any wonder that MEPs are so confused, as I’m sure that no one wants to agree to anything that is blatantly breaking EU legislation. .

I think the main reason for putting back the plenary vote to its original date was the timing of the ENVI report containing the amendments to the Commission’s proposal.Its publication at the end of august would have left the MEPs 3 working days to absorb the proposal – probably insufficient for something this important.

It should also be noted that the proposal estimates only a 2% fall in consumption over 5 years which equates to a 0.6% fall in prevalence over the same period.The de facto ban on ecigs will more than wipe out the gains from the tobacco part.

It is surely in everyone’s interests that our MEPs have enough time to understand all the issues and make a considered judgment rather than rushing it through with undue haste.

Your advocacy of the TPD highlights on most of the non-contentious aspects , however on the matter of e-cigs you gloss over .

There has been a very long running blog on here that you have managed to ignore ~360 comments for yourselves and politicians to carefully consider before they vote .Without me going over all of the comments made I would like yourself and any other interested reader to look at just 3 links

1 http://nicotinepolicy.net/gerry-stimson/250-costs-and-burdens-of-medicines-regulation-for-e-cigarettes

2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?sns=tw&v=wTHGsTPklY4&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DwTHGsTPklY4%26sns%3Dtw&app=desktop

3 http://t.co/PGJ0Lexquu

Please look at all 3 links and debate further if you wish