Currently, the UK is set for a two-tier system once the new EU TPD has been implemented, probably by 2016. There will be a consumer products group and a medical products group.
We don't know how the EU consumer product regulations will be transposed and implemented in the UK. The regs class ecigs as a 'tobacco product' and introduce many restrictions. Depending on how the regs are interpreted, 99.9% of current products could be eliminated along with most small businesses including shops, along with bans on advertising that might even be applied to community resources such as forums.
The reason behind the legislation is to protect tobacco cigarette sales, because so many people and organisations with power depend on the smoking economy and the immense funds it generates: the vast tax revenues, 15% of the pharmaceutical industry's overall income, the cigarette trade, the tobacco control industry; and government departments such as the Department of Health do what they are told by the pharmaceutical industry. Remember that you buy your cigarettes from the government: they are a greater than 90% stakeholder in tobacco sales. The tobacco industry is a very minor partner at somewhere around a 9% stakeholding. The government makes about three times the cost of EU membership from tobacco sales and the resulting savings on pensions etc.
Since the reason is to protect smoking, then we can expect that implementation of the EU regs will be as strict as possible, and in addition will become stricter over time. They see their achievable goal as removal of the independent ecig industry and giving the market to the giant cigarette firms, plus one or two large ecig firms. Under this scenario, which is what they are aiming for now (a total ban on ecigs failed), only minis sold by Big Tobacco and NJoy etc. will be left as a legal product.
As far as medicalisation goes in the UK, the MHRA lied and lied for several years in respect of the possible licensing of ecigs. When it came to the crunch and they had to license an ecig for medical use, they finally refused - after one firm (Intellicig) had spent 4 years and £2 million on the license application. The MHRA now admit that they will never license an ecig: all current ecigs are unlicensable and impossible to adapt for licensing, according to them. They now demand that a new type of 'ecig' is invented that has a metered dose.
There are a couple of firms in the running for this new type of license, but the likelihood is that the result will be similar to the current nicotine inhalers - they certainly won't be ecigs of any kind we would recognise. So in fact things have moved on somewhat from a situation where an ecig might have got an MA and was able to be prescribed or sold OTC; some devices will probably be available at some point but they certainly won't be anything that you or anyone else will want - just like the current inhalators, they will be useless for the purpose of attracting smokers. Smokers don't want a medical device, that's why they don't work. This of course is the design objective.
The MHRA are inveterate liars and always have been - I have experienced it, in detail, at first hand, so there is no possible way that anyone can convince me otherwise (or build any legal case for libel). Jeremy Mean is a professional liar, it's what he's paid to do. He has deliberately lied to me personally and there is no possible way to deny it.
The Department of Health are owned lock stock and barrel by the pharmaceutical industry, and you can regard Jeremy Hunt (Minister for Health) as pharma's man in government. He is prepared to kill millions of people in order to protect pharma profits - take a look at his personal war against ecigs, when Prof Britton has made it very clear that 5 million lives could be saved in the UK, just in those alive today, by a population-level switch to ecigs.
Therefore we can expect that the MHRA will never license any kind of device that is recognisable as an ecig, and that the Dept of Health will do their best to kill consumer ecigs in the UK. Only the major tobacco firms will be left with a legal ecig to sell - and you can probably expect that they won't do their utmost to ensure that ecig sales eliminate tobacco cigarette sales
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That suits everyone (who counts). You are a citizen and you count less than the average worm. You are there to be exploited, taxed till the pips squeak, then die young from being forced to smoke. Please remember your place, and don't complain. If you complain then be aware you may suffer the consequences in the neo-Stalinist EU and its province the UK.
Some people think I go too far, or that I am wrong. Unfortunately I'm always, without exception, proved right.
