Friday, October 04, 2013

Letter from my MP - E-cigs

Just to repeat things here's a letter I sent to my MP:

Dear Sir,

A number of months back my wife was diagnosed with a serious complaint that requires major surgery and, this tending to focus one on matters of health, we both decided it was time to give up smoking. However, having made numerous attempts in the past and simply failing, we weren’t optimistic.

Some friends, who had given up a few years before, handed over their stash of NRT including patches, gum, microtabs, inhalators and some electronic cigarettes. All of these worked to some degree but the e-cig was the most effective, even though the ones we had were a few years old and malfunctioning. We then, to our surprise, found them for sale in Tesco and bought a Vapestick each. These, with their ‘cartomizers’ and more modern design were even better. Better still, thereafter, was an e-cig with a small glass tank that can take various flavours of e-liquid. It was the moment I started using one of these that I had an epiphany, realising that I would never ever again smoke a cigarette.

Incidentally, since I’m a known SF writer (ask David Davis) who also blogs a lot, this has led to six of my fans finally taking the plunge and giving up smoking using the same method.

It is now the case that even if I cannot give up ‘vaping’ my chances of dying from all those smoking-related maladies have just dropped through the floor. These devices are massively harm-reducing. Ignore all this mealy-mouthed nonsense that starts with ‘but we don’t know enough’. We know that a ‘vaper’ breathes in nicotine, a vaporising substance found in asthma inhalers, and water. Nicotine is certainly addictive, but is no more harmful than caffeine. Yes, some further supposedly harmful substances have been found, but no more than are found in conventional NRT – trace amounts – and of course the merest fraction of a per cent of two or three of the thousands of chemicals and 60 or so known carcinogens in real cigarettes.  

So, imagine my surprise and horror to learn that there are people who want to ban these devices, and that bans have in fact already been introduced on some trains and in some pub chains. Imagine how annoying it is for me to discover that legislation is being introduced, much to the delight of drug and cigarette companies, that will kill innovation in this new industry, make these devices difficult to sell, impose limits on the strength and flavours of e-liquids and, in essence will drive many ‘vapers’ back to smoking; many of the 1.3 million people now using e-cigs in Britain today.

This is madness. This reveals that activists at the likes of ASH are more concerned with activism itself rather than the purported reason for it. This reveals that such is the hatred of anti-smokers that they would rather people died than use something that looks like a cigarette.  This leads to complete Twilight Zone situations like one recently, when an NHS quit-smoking manager was complaining about a lack clients because they were using e-cigs.

Now, as my MP, what are you going to do about this? Here is something you can get behind that will actually save lives.


Yours Sincerely,

Here's my MP's reply:




What a total twat he is. One e-cig company recently checked with the MRHA about getting their products licensed. If they wanted to license them all the cost was in the millions.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

which is why you can only get nicilites and vapestick in tesco now.

incidentally, now a week on the upgraded vapestick MAX. no way i am going back now.

thanks for helping me take the plunge and quit.

Jebel Krong said...

Hmmm interesting, I assume "regulate" is really code for "needs tax". I think better plan would be to get the NHS on-side: save them a bundle and they'll put the pressure back on.

Kirby Uber said...

you have to wonder, do they believe this garbage before they start spewing it, or by merit of repeating it vigorously, until they actually convince themselves?

Kirby Uber said...

incidentally, still loving my ego Ce4

Neal Asher said...

Read this:

"Licensing or ban?
I refer to pharmaceutical licensing as a ban, because it is. There are at least 5,000 products on the market now, the majority being refill variants. All will need to be removed from the market immediately licensing comes into force (within 21 days is the usual requirement). A license can only be applied to one product or product combination: a single hardware model, or a single liquid type/flavour, or a single device plus one liquid type. There is no possibility of a single license for several products. Each single product takes at least 3 years and at least £2m to achieve a license for (as that is what it has cost Intellicig in time and money to get their license so far, with no result as yet). Intellicig famously underestimated the cost and timescale, and have had to modify their time plan by a factor of 2 (initial estimate was <2 years), and their cost estimates by a factor of 20 (initial budget was £95,000). And it's not over yet."

- See more at: http://www.ecigarette-politics.com/blog/mhra-announces-decision-to-regulate-e-cigarettes.html#sthash.3vziP9PT.dpuf

Anonymous said...

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Unknown said...

These MPs really need to get over the MHRA party line. AFAIK out of all the countries that have regulated ecigs as medicines, not a single regulatory body has issued a single license!

Unknown said...

It’s sad that this is happening when the community has already accepted and acknowledged that Vaping is a healthier alternative to smoking. While there are still complaints about the matter, it’s mostly about people not observing the polite way of exhaling the vapor, and those are more on the person rather than on the device itself.

Frankie | Logic Premium E-cigs

Anonymous said...

Licensing it would definitely kill off those small shops that focus more on refill rather than selling the devices themselves. Though it may be touted as a way to regulate and ensure that only quality products stay in the market, the side effect of such an action would be catastrophic to those places that only have a limited source, with most of them in the range of small businesses. As far as regulation goes, the community does it all by itself by supporting the good ones and spreading the word about them, and waving off the cheap knock-offs that just want to make a quick buck.

Madeline @ Nidor Vapor Bar