Clive Bates - excellent summary of the Totally Wicked challenge to the EU Tobacco Directive

[Tache]

Totally Wicked legal challenge to the Tobacco Products Directive e-cigarette measures « The counterfactual

We need someone with sufficient resources to make this kind of challenge to Health Canada, FDA and other country's regulating bodies. It is scary to watch even city councils place bans/restrictions on e-cig use based on mis-information and cavalierly dismiss the public health benefits of smokers switching to a less harmful alternative.

 

[Kent C]

Totally Wicked legal challenge to the Tobacco Products Directive e-cigarette measures « The counterfactual

We need someone with sufficient resources to make this kind of challenge to Health Canada, FDA and other country's regulating bodies. It is scary to watch even city councils place bans/restrictions on e-cig use based on mis-information and cavalierly dismiss the public health benefits of smokers switching to a less harmful alternative.

Thanks for posting. I intend to read more closely later but note a few things - and not sure how significant this is because I haven't been following it closely since there was a bit of a break between TW and ECITA, earlier, so I was glad to see Katherine Devlin's positive comments. (and Bill G's comment). And I also wonder how effective this will be vs. our efforts in the US. My initial thought was they might have more success over there. There are 'vested interests' in all gov'ts - we'll see how vested they are.

 

[dragonpuff]

As for the U.S., my feeling is that it's difficult to make a legal challenge at this very moment, as there isn't anything finalized yet. In 2009 companies were able to make a claim against the FDA because the FDA was actively acting on its definition of e-cigs as a medical device. Right now the FDA isn't doing much of anything except talking about potential regulation.

As soon as the deeming regs become final rule, however, you'd better bet there will be vapor companies and consumer organizations lining up to drag their butts into court over it

I can't say anything about Health Canada though, I'm not Canadian and I don't know how their legal system works...

 

[csardaz]

Warning : don't follow the links. Full of dense legal language that will consume hours and give you a headache.
Not as bad as some tho - no latin for instance.

 

[Kent C]

Warning : don't follow the links. Full of dense legal language that will consume hours and give you a headache.
Not as bad as some tho - no latin for instance.

lol Thanks. I've been through the whole Community Reinvestment Act legislation and it's predecessors, the EPA second-hand smoke meta-study as well as the studies that were included in that meta-study, all gun legislation, etc.. Everything else comes much easier now

 

[Tache]

Isn't it sad though, that we have to wait, for those who are supposed to have our best interests at heart, to totally screw up before we can take them to task in a way that they have to listen.

(that was meant to be a response to Dragonpuff's post - I meant to hit the "reply with quote" button.)

 

[dragonpuff]

Isn't it sad though, that we have to wait, for those who are supposed to have our best interests at heart, to totally screw up before we can take them to task in a way that they have to listen.

(that was meant to be a response to Dragonpuff's post - I meant to hit the "reply with quote" button.)

Well, supposedly right now we have the option of contacting the FDA to tell them how we feel, which we've been doing.... not that any of that is actually going to stop these regulations from passing, but technically we have that option

However - we also have the option to vote this fall, and that could sway the tide in our direction a little more congress, after all, has the power to vote to overturn the regulations if need be. Plus, if this does go to court (which it will if it passes as is), getting those regulations overturned in court will give us a free pass for a while.

But yeah, it would be nice if the FDA actually looked out for the people in the first place, but that hasn't been true for a long, long time...

 

[Nate760]

lol Thanks. I've been through the whole Community Reinvestment Act legislation and it's predecessors, the EPA second-hand smoke meta-study as well as the studies that were included in that meta-study, all gun legislation, etc.. Everything else comes much easier now

When you try to read (comprehensively) an entire piece of legislation, it's easy to see why nobody in Congress bothers reading the damn things either. I have a strange admiration for the people who write statutory language, because it can't be easy to generate pages and pages of prose that is both impenetrably verbose and puzzlingly ambiguous at the same time.

 

[Kent C]

When you try to read (comprehensively) an entire piece of legislation, it's easy to see why nobody in Congress bothers reading the damn things either. I have a strange admiration for the people who write statutory language, because it can't be easy to generate pages and pages of prose that is both impenetrably verbose and puzzlingly ambiguous at the same time.

What is worse is the citations in a current piece of legislation to earlier legislation, which is based on earlier legislation, etc. etc. going back to the first violation of the Constitution that either wasn't challenged or challenged and lost to judges from one side of the political spectrum. http://www.amazon.com/The-Dirty-Dozen-Radically-Government/dp/1935308270

"The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom" by William Mellor and Robert Levy (the last of whom wrote against the EPA's case for second-hand smoke and "Lies, Damned Lies, & 400,000 Smoking-Related Deaths"

 

[rothenbj]

Well, supposedly right now we have the option of contacting the FDA to tell them how we feel, which we've been doing.... not that any of that is actually going to stop these regulations from passing, but technically we have that option

However - we also have the option to vote this fall, and that could sway the tide in our direction a little more congress, after all, has the power to vote to overturn the regulations if need be. Plus, if this does go to court (which it will if it passes as is), getting those regulations overturned in court will give us a free pass for a while.

But yeah, it would be nice if the FDA actually looked out for the people in the first place, but that hasn't been true for a long, long time...

The bolded prt is true, but they've been devoting their looking out for their clients, the Pharma industry.

 

[Racehorse]

Totally Wicked legal challenge to the Tobacco Products Directive e-cigarette measures « The counterfactual

We need someone with sufficient resources to make this kind of challenge to Health Canada, FDA and other country's regulating bodies. It is scary to watch even city councils place bans/restrictions on e-cig use based on mis-information and cavalierly dismiss the public health benefits of smokers switching to a less harmful alternative.

Kudos to TW and Clive Bates, esp. since the US and Canada aren't even attending the WHO conference in Moscow this week (politcal boycotting re Moscow).

TW has spent quite a lot of $$$..... this outfit is doing a lot of the *heavy lifting". hope many vendors are thanking them, because they are essentially ridiing on TW's coat-tails in many respects