EU Vaping Petition

achieve

Has anyone here signed this petition?

http://www.petitiononline.com/fr33dom/petition.html

Is at 16,000 signatures.

ECITA (Electronic Cigarette Industry Trade Association) were to meet with EU officials today, March 7, with this petition. Being honest I don't know much about ECITA - only heard of them for first time today, but with a post I made earlier re: large "customs seizure" in Germany etc, maybe it's time the ordinary vaper starts showing how important ecigs are to the user, and the enormous benefits to those who choose vaping over smoking.

Neil_Sedaka

achieve wrote: »

Has anyone here signed this petition?

http://www.petitiononline.com/fr33dom/petition.html

Yes, thanks.

stevenmu

Oh, hadn't spotted this. I actually just posted this in reply to your other thread:

I'm starting to think it might be a good idea to begin some pre-emptive lobbying here before the Joe Duffy brigade flip a coin and decide that they should be banned.

We're at a bit of a crossroads, at the moment vaping is too small to pop up on anybody's radar, so as long as nothing bad happens no one is really going to care. But it's growing ever more popular, especially with disposables popping up in more and more shops. Sooner or later people will start to notice, then if history is anything to go by they were start forming random opinions based on no facts and start campaigning one way or the other. The the politicians will notice and back whatever side is making the most noise.

Worse still, imagine what would happen if some under aged kids started buying them. Lets face it, shops here don't have a great track record of letting a customer's age come between them and some crisp banknotes. At best sale would become as highly regulated as cigarettes (which would include no online selling and no importing).

Legislation and control could come about in one of two ways. 1) A group of civil servants (most likely in the Dept. Health/HSE) could form an opinion, then submit recommendations to their minister. One of the things about civil servants is that they can be quite conservative, and once they form a negative opinion of something it would be very hard to change, so it would be important to get to them first. 2) Some politicians could form an opinion and start it that way. Politicians will, despite the reputation they have, generally try to go for whatever's best for the people. The problem comes about when either it's not very clear what is best and/or if there's a lot of public noisy campaigning.

If I get a chance over the next week or two I might try and draft up some form letters that anybody interested people could send, both to the Dept of Health or HSE, and to their local TDs. Also their are both pro- and anti-smoking groups here in Ireland, if they could possibly both be persuaded to support vaping, that could send a really powerful message.

It could be risky drawing attention to vaping, but at the same time attention will come sooner or later and IMHO it's probably better to come first from vapers putting a positive message across.

but it might be better suited here. It does look Germany are going down the route of an all out ban. Lots of states in the US have been implementing or starting to implement various bits of legislation. It's going to happen here sooner or later. I think it's probably better for us to get our say sooner rather than later.

eeloe

I really really hope the government doesn't take notice of the Vaping community....

If they start taxing e juice the same as fags, we'll be paying €1 per ml....

stevenmu

eeloe wrote: »

I really really hope the government doesn't take notice of the Vaping community....

If they start taxing e juice the same as fags, we'll be paying €1 per ml....

While I agree, I think its very likely that they will sooner or later (and they quite possibly have already and are just waiting to see how it plays out elsewhere). I'm hopeful that it will be difficult for them to put excise on vaping without also putting it on patches/gum/inhalers and other nicotine replacement therapies. I don't think anyone would be eager to suggest excising those, I hope not anyway.

achieve

stevenmu wrote: »

eeloe wrote: »

I really really hope the government doesn't take notice of the Vaping community....

If they start taxing e juice the same as fags, we'll be paying €1 per ml....

While I agree, I think its very likely that they will sooner or later (and they quite possibly have already and are just waiting to see how it plays out elsewhere). I'm hopeful that it will be difficult for them to put excise on vaping without also putting it on patches/gum/inhalers and other nicotine replacement therapies. I don't think anyone would be eager to suggest excising those, I hope not anyway.

I would think that most Irish vendors are already paying vat on the products they sell. Certainly many say so on their websites. At 23% it's a fair ould chunk to the vat man!

eeloe

I'm sure they are paying their VAT, but as stevenmu said, it's the excise duty we need to be watching out for.

I sincerely hope they don't start upping the prices of stuff, as if they do, no one will bother making the switch from analogs to vaping....

I'm still actually quite shocked that it's such a small market at the moment, especially here(the most expensive country in the world to buy cigarettes/tobacco).

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

smokers tend to be quite stubborn as well as addicted to nicotine
a good chunk of them just don't want to quit, especially after being yelled at in the face for the last 20 odd years about how stupid they are for smoking.. only natural a good chunk will just dig their heels in and ignore any alternatives