I have received a letter from Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt via my mp. This is the main text:
"The UK Government welcomes the European Commission's intention to strengthen the functioning of the internal market in tobacco products and thereby to protect public health. This is an opportunity for us to ensure better and more consistent regulation of tobacco products and related products to reflect the changing nature of those markets in the 12 years since the original tobacco Products Directive (TPD) was published.
I want to reassure you that during the negotiations, my officials have been working to ensure a final text which best meets the UK's public health objectives while being evidence-based and proportionate.
Following advice from the Commission on Human Medicines and its expert group, the Government concluded that nicotine-containing products, including electronic cigarettes, should be regulated as medicines to ensure that such products meet appropriate standards of safety, quality and efficacy. The European Commission has said it expects the TPD to be adopted in 2014 and for it to come into effect in the UK from 2016."
I replied to my mp - here's the main gist of it:
I noted that Mr Hunt wishes to regulate all nicotine-containing products as medicines (including electronic cigarettes). Surely this then means that tobacco cigarettes (nicotine-containing products) would therefore also have to be regulated as medicines. Because of the overwhelming evidence that cigarettes cause cancer there would seem to be no way in which they could obtain a medical licence.
Following this reasoning the Tobacco Products Directive would therefore act as a de facto ban on tobacco.
I would be grateful for any further information that you could shed on this matter.
"The UK Government welcomes the European Commission's intention to strengthen the functioning of the internal market in tobacco products and thereby to protect public health. This is an opportunity for us to ensure better and more consistent regulation of tobacco products and related products to reflect the changing nature of those markets in the 12 years since the original tobacco Products Directive (TPD) was published.
I want to reassure you that during the negotiations, my officials have been working to ensure a final text which best meets the UK's public health objectives while being evidence-based and proportionate.
Following advice from the Commission on Human Medicines and its expert group, the Government concluded that nicotine-containing products, including electronic cigarettes, should be regulated as medicines to ensure that such products meet appropriate standards of safety, quality and efficacy. The European Commission has said it expects the TPD to be adopted in 2014 and for it to come into effect in the UK from 2016."
I replied to my mp - here's the main gist of it:
I noted that Mr Hunt wishes to regulate all nicotine-containing products as medicines (including electronic cigarettes). Surely this then means that tobacco cigarettes (nicotine-containing products) would therefore also have to be regulated as medicines. Because of the overwhelming evidence that cigarettes cause cancer there would seem to be no way in which they could obtain a medical licence.
Following this reasoning the Tobacco Products Directive would therefore act as a de facto ban on tobacco.
I would be grateful for any further information that you could shed on this matter.
