EU draft directive to be presented on wed 19th Dec

Vaperus wrote: »

Yeah a petition could be good, need somebody who has already done one, seems to be lots of places to create a petition but need the right place and it needs to reach the right people

Thought we had a petition on here once for something similar

Our government have already shown that they do not take online petitions seriously. The Irish sopa petition had around 100,000 signitures and they were referred to as Internet warriors in the dail.
Either write to or speak to your representatives.

Its not just about us writing letters.
How many are on here, how many have written letters.
Its also about public awareness and getting them to write letters as well.
This Directive is not going to be posted through peoples letter boxes and nether is an invitation to take part in the health authority thing.

Most people wont know this is even happening until it is done.
A Petition may be worhtless but if it helps make people aware then it isnt

We need to let all Vapours know and Friends of Vapours and their friends

kiffy wrote: »

Just had a brainwave :eek: we need someone to write to Joe Duffy explaining our potential plight, needs to be someone who can talk live and not freeze up like a kipper (like me) what better coverage than national radio listened to by hundred's of thousands each day

Talking to Joe sounds like a good idea I reckon.

I know he a a piece on e-cigs a few weeks ago, so I'm sure he'd revisit the issue in the light of the proposed Directive - we need all the publicity we can get on this.. the only thing that exercises politicians is the thought of losing votes

Anybody well up on the proposed legislation and on the benefits of vaping who'd be willing to volunteer for the role of talking to Joe?

I Thought the flavour restriction was on Liquids as well.

Joe Duffy would be a great Idea if we can get a volunteer

I will post it up on face book as well

kiffy wrote: »

Never saw it mention liquids in the write up, the write up about only tobacco flavours was all about cigarettes and packaging it hadn't got to the e-cigs part at that stage of the write up.
I ****ing hate tobacco flavours

Yeah I hate them too, but might not notice at 2mg

Lucutus wrote: »

Joe bloody Duffy, don't get me started on RTE and who's pockets the TV license fees pad out.

The only people even mildly interested in this will be vapers and their friends/families.

I'm not a fan of him or RTE either, but if you get on the airwaves with this issue, the papers / local radio will pick up on it too and we could have a lot more converts to vaping before the sh!t hits the fan - people power is needed here.

kiffy;
Had a text from a fellow vaper at work who only uses menthol liquid, from what I read of the directive the flavour's bit doesn't affect e-liquid, am I right in that assumption?

As I understand it all new smokeless products will be restricted in the use of flavors.

Definitions

For the purposes of this Directive:

1. "tobacco products" means products for the purposes of smoking, sniffing, sucking or chewing, inasmuch as they are, even partly, made of tobacco, whether genetically modified or not;

Thats from the current directive, however the new directive seems to have created a new category to cover ecigs tho they are not specificaly named in the directive they are referred to in the pr literature.

Article 18
Nicotine-containing products
1. The following nicotine-containing products may only be placed on the market if they
were authorised pursuant to Directive 2001/83/EC:
(a) products with a nicotine level exceeding 2 mg per unit, or
(b) products with a nicotine concentration exceeding 4 mg per ml or
(c) products whose intended use results in a mean maximum peak plasma
concentration exceeding 4 ng of nicotine per ml.
2. The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with
Article 22 to update the nicotine quantities set out in paragraph 1 taking into account
scientific developments and marketing authorisations granted to nicotine- containing
products pursuant to Directive 2001/83/EC.
3. Each unit packet and any outside packaging of nicotine-containing products below
the thresholds set out in paragraph 1 shall carry the following health warning:
This product contains nicotine and can damage your health.
4. The health warning referred to in paragraph 3 shall comply with the requirements
specified in Article 10(4). In addition, it shall:
(a) be printed on the two largest surfaces of the unit packet and any outside
packaging;
(b) cover 30 % of the external area of the corresponding surface of the unit packet
and any outside packaging. That proportion shall be increased to 32 % for
Member States with two official languages and 35 % for Member States with
three official languages.
5. The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with
Article 22 to adapt the requirements in paragraphs 3 and 4 taking into account
scientific and market developments and to adopt and adapt the position, format,
layout, design and rotation of the health warnings.

You are right that eliquid flavors are not in the scope of this directive but as the PR stands it's quite likely that individual states will include them.

kiffy wrote: »

Also very curious to know if any of our forum members are going to give the 4mg limit a go if this thing comes in?

Not a hope for me. Vaped a 12mg juice recently and got barely any throathit, and zero craving reduction.
Had the thing practically stapled to my face for the day, which doesn't go down too well with the OH.

Signed and shared Vaperus.

Vaperus wrote: »

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/No_ban_on_electronic_smoking/?aYcGXab&external
600,000 vapours in the UK and 5600 signed it worldwide doesnt really show the EU Vaping as being very serious

Most movie-goers have never heard of IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes.
The vast majority of people don't know the Internet exists much past eBay, Google and Facebook.
Most ecig users, naturally, have not one iota of a clue that there are forums about ecigs, and not even a notion they're about to be effectively banned.
Met three women at a house party last night who'd quit smoking with ecigs.
Had no idea about this forum (or any forum for anything - I had to ask as I don't understand how people find things out without the Internet).
Had no idea about the impending regulation that would push them back to smoking.
No surprise.

I for one welcome our new Mandarin speaking overlords

email addresses of the Chinese embassy in Dublin & London

Not to sound pessimistic, but a real pen and paper letter holds a million times more weight than zero's and ones - especially to the likes of embassy's and politicians IMHO of course

I hate to say it but we're probably fighting a lost cause. The government couldn't give two shíts if all of us went back on real cigarettes tomorrow, probably be quite glad.

The tobacco industry is effectively owned by governments.

For example, in the case of a packet of 20 Benson and Hedges cigarettes, the excise content is €5.85, which equates to around 61% of the retail price. When one takes account of VAT, total tax as a percentage of price is 78%.

If e-cigs catch on in a big way (which they will) then they will lose hundreds of millions in lost revenue. Of course they're going to ban them. And now is the time, before they get really popular, so they will have less people to campaign against it.

Contacting local TDs and MEPs is a great idea, as are Kiffys letters but as somebody alluded to earlier a real campaign is needed. The EC responds best to coordinated lobbying so an Irish group may need to be formed to take on the job. Maybe there's already a group out there who could do it? We'd also need to decide what we want and what's realistic. There's no regulation at the moment and like it or not, concerns have been raised at an EU level and the European Commission has taken it upon itself to address those concerns. I think the point is how they're addressed. Regulation will more than likely come in some shape or form, as it's difficult to argue that a product containing an addictive drug shouldn't be subjected to some kind of quality control. However, I think we're all in agreement that the proposed 4mg level is not acceptable and in my view neither is categorising juice as a medicinal product. So maybe the campaign should be aimed at what we want rather than what we don't want. Hypothetically, I wouldn't be against regulation that targets quality control but how do you introduce it without letting officials destroy the market by preventing us from getting juice with an acceptable level of nicotine content or in the flavours that help keep us from straying back to cigarettes?

Here's a link on how to go about lobbying the European Commission, http://www.ngoeuconnect.ie/content.php?area=26

jakdublin wrote: »

Contacting local TDs and MEPs is a great idea, as are Kiffys letters but as somebody alluded to earlier a real campaign is needed. The EC responds best to coordinated lobbying so an Irish group may need to be formed to take on the job. Maybe there's already a group out there who could do it? We'd also need to decide what we want and what's realistic. There's no regulation at the moment and like it or not, concerns have been raised at an EU level and the European Commission has taken it upon itself to address those concerns. I think the point is how they're addressed. Regulation will more than likely come in some shape or form, as it's difficult to argue that a product containing an addictive drug shouldn't be subjected to some kind of quality control. However, I think we're all in agreement that the proposed 4mg level is not acceptable and in my view neither is categorising juice as a medicinal product. So maybe the campaign should be aimed at what we want rather than what we don't want. Hypothetically, I wouldn't be against regulation that targets quality control but how do you introduce it without letting officials destroy the market by preventing us from getting juice with an acceptable level of nicotine content or in the flavours that help keep us from straying back to cigarettes?

Here's a link on how to go about lobbying the European Commission, http://www.ngoeuconnect.ie/content.php?area=26

Good point about campaigning for what we want rather than what we are against, so what do we want? This is from ASH;

If they are to compete with tobacco products,pure nicotine products must be sold on equal terms or better:
pricing should favour pure nicotine products over tobacco. Public education is also needed as many smokers
(and health professionals) have a poor understanding of the relative safety of pure nicotine products including nicotine replacement therapy.

I think this is the tack we need to take, as smokers will not switch from cigarettes if the alternative is expensive, inefficient, ineffective and promoted as a quit method. Regulation that is onerous will not help to improve a product or promote it expansion as a smoking alternative.
Other than standard trading standards no regulation is needed.

The trouble is convincing the good members that ecigs are a real benefit in the anti smoking effort. What I left out of that last post is the argument that as smoking is declining in the EU generally the decline is not fast enough, new smokers are replacing former (i.e. dead) smokers faster than is desirable, to combat this we need alternative products that replicate the pleasurable effects of smoking without the harmfull effective. Ecigs are that product. The fact that without the nic content they are not regulated shows that the EU is cool wih the product concept, just the Pharma grip on nic delivery systems that seems to cause the problem. What we need to press home is the fact that it's the nic that makes the product effective as a smoking replacement, one that while not 100% safe (what is?) is orders of magnitude safer (and consequently less resource consuming) than a product that requires inhalation of smoke with all it attendant toxins.
Yes I realize that protecting the market for Big Pharma is the purpose of this directive but I hope that the average MEP is too stupid to realize this or that at best they can be embarrassed into accepting our argument.

I have also noticed a degree of fatalism on the various forums I follow, a sort of 'they will do what they like no matter what we say' attitude. I say let them, what we do shouldn't be dictate by their presumptions or our presumptions. this matters too much to let a bunch of politicians dictated by vested interests dictate the options available to real world people regarding their health.


Have any of you any idea how hard it is to post sh1t like this on a phone while drunk, now do you know how much this matters? Back to drinking my Tokyo Intergalactic fantastic stout, stop winding me up