EU Health Commissioner Dalli resigns over Swedish snus scandal, proposed e-cig sales ban

[Bill Godshall]

This is the best opportunity yet for tobacco harm reduction advocates in Europe to expose the lies of e-cig and smokeless tobacco prohibitionists.

Don't understand why very few e-cigarette consumers seem to be interested in exploiting this wonderful opportunity to educate the public and EU commissioners about the health risks of different tobacco/nicotine products, and to inform and encourage them to keep e-cigarettes legal and to rescind the EU snus ban.

 

[UKGingerBread]

Don't understand why very few e-cigarette consumers seem to be interested in exploiting this wonderful opportunity to educate the public and EU commissioners about the health risks of different tobacco/nicotine products, and to inform and encourage them to keep e-cigarettes legal and to rescind the EU snus ban.

OK So I'm your common or garden average vaper. I want to do something to help the situation. I don't want e-cigs banned, I'd love to see the Snus ban overturned as it makes little to no sense if you are arguing about 'pubic health' to look at the levels of smoking related disease and mortality in Sweden, who have Snus and Norway who also have Snus, in comparison to say the UK or any other EU member state, who do not have snus and somehow argue the case that smokeless tobacco increases the public health risk. I mean just look at the stats. It's self evident. I'd also like there to be some regulation in the e-cig market, and I'd like to see that regulation to be affordable to a small business startup rather than regulation/licencing that could cost £750000 to obtain (putting the only viable vendors as existing Big Tobacco companies or Big Pharma companies) So what practical steps can I take, and other people like me, who have the power of the internet at our disposal, and some time on our hands, to make, perhaps, a difference?

 

[UKGingerBread]

for some reason the forum keeps eating the formatting in my above post - please just imagine it has paragraphs and stuff.

 

[Placebo Effect]

OK So I'm your common or garden average vaper. I want to do something to help the situation. I don't want e-cigs banned, I'd love to see the Snus ban overturned as it makes little to no sense if you are arguing about 'pubic health' to look at the levels of smoking related disease and mortality in Sweden, who have Snus and Norway who also have Snus, in comparison to say the UK or any other EU member state, who do not have snus and somehow argue the case that smokeless tobacco increases the public health risk. I mean just look at the stats. It's self evident. I'd also like there to be some regulation in the e-cig market, and I'd like to see that regulation to be affordable to a small business startup rather than regulation/licencing that could cost £750000 to obtain (putting the only viable vendors as existing Big Tobacco companies or Big Pharma companies) So what practical steps can I take, and other people like me, who have the power of the internet at our disposal, and some time on our hands, to make, perhaps, a difference?

Every vaper in the U.K. should be researching the letter to the editor standards (i.e., word count) of your local newspaper(s) (there are letters to the editor in the U.K. and the rest of Europe, right?) and then firing off the letters. Encourage other vapers in other parts of Europe to write letters. There are a variety of approaches you can take to the letter, but your focus should be on how it the Tobacco Products Directive poses a danger to the health of numerous E.U. citizens, that Sweden's success shows THR works, and that the corruption allegations should result in time being taken to draft a new directive that actually takes into account the public's opinions and sound science.

 

[rolygate]

Find out who your local MP and especially your MEP are, and go to see them. If you really cannot get to meet them then write a (physical) letter to them or send a fax. Emails and petitions are just spam and are ignored.

Join your local vapers group and make sure they are all doing that. If there is no local vapers group then set one up: advertise in the local papers, by getting a journalist to help you out.

Join ECCA and volunteer to help. ECCA is a useful organisation (for example it is a NICE stakeholder) but is desperately short of people who will actually do anything. Most UK vapers are only interested in complaining about why nobody is doing anything, they haven't figured out yet that it's them who have to do it.

 

[sonicdsl]

Most UK vapers are only interested in complaining about why nobody is doing anything, they haven't figured out yet that it's them who have to do it.

Yet another commonality with our UK brethren.

 

[Bill Godshall]

An excellent article in the UK's Guardian

In Sweden, smokers have another option -- Snus
Switching from cigarettes to oral tobacco has helped Sweden achieve the lowest rate of tobacco-related diseases in Europe
In Sweden, smokers have another option

 

[Berylanna]

An excellent article in the UK's Guardian

In Sweden, smokers have another option -- Snus
Switching from cigarettes to oral tobacco has helped Sweden achieve the lowest rate of tobacco-related diseases in Europe
In Sweden, smokers have another option

Ooooh, love this quote from the article:

In the meantime, in the words of smoking addiction expert Professor Robert West, the current policy makes about as much sense as "banning coca leaves and allowing the promotion of crack".