E-cigs to be Banned

Via Facebook and UK Vapers today:

Now another massive blow to the harm reduction market, UK authorities have decided to ban all recreational nicotine, bar tobacco on the basis of a flawed ‘consultation’ and in spite of thousands of testimonies about the value of recreational sales.

400,000 existing UK users of electronic cigarettes and millions of potential swappers are now left with no legal alternative to smoke. The small businesses which brought us these life changing products are to be destroyed and the unregulated, higher risk import market will be the only source of supplies for people who bother to go to the trouble to try the product. The disproportionate and unjustified burden of medical regulation may well destroy the usefulness of the product and make it unprofitable. (For more details about commercial and economic impacts, Michael from http://www.cheapelectroniccigarettes.co.uk/ says he can tell you how his business will be affected – sales@cheap-electronic-cigarettes.co.uk )

Keeping people smoking, stigmatised, quitting, failing and repeating the process is how tobacco control keeps their gravy train running – over our dead bodies. The NHS is no longer a public health organisation, it is the state’s drug dealing arm and we’re forced by rent seeking legislation to use only their drugs while being subjected to non-consensual addiction treatment or exclusion from healthcare, care homes and social venues.

Nicotine has a similar pharmacological action to caffeine, it’s not a big deal but the delivery system can be harmful. The government will only allow the most harmful or those proven not to work, creating a problem and spinning it out of control; costing a fortune in financial, social and human terms.

Over twenty countries have closed their recreational nicotine markets since electronic cigarettes emerged six years ago. This medicalisation process is promoted by the World Health Organisation which only endorses proven ineffective pharmaceutical products and encourages suppression of harm reduction strategies.

Presumably the medicalisation of all recreational substances is the goal for totalitarian control.

A link was provided to a letter sent by West Sussex County Council on 29 July 2010, in which it is written:

As we discussed during our visit back in June, the MHRA have been in consultation over whether electronic cigarettes should be classed as medical products and regulated as such. I have been in discussions with other Trading Standards authorities and have found out that the consultation is almost complete. The outcome will be that as of a date (yet to be announced) there will be a 21 days period and then these products will be outright banned in the UK, unless the traders apply for certification as a medical device from the MRHA. This process could be complicated and costly so it is expected that many traders may cease trading.

First one unnecessary and vindictive ban, and now another. All that there is in an e-cig is nicotine and inert propylene glycol and flavouring. There are no carcinogens like benzapyrene which are found in tobacco smoke (and in fact in more or less all combustion products). Nothing is burned in an e-cig. So there is no health threat to vapers, and in particular no health threat to any third party. If it’s the nicotine that regarded as a threat, why aren’t nicotine patches banned too?

A lot of smokers have moved over to exclusively vaping instead of smoking. Their only option now will be to go back to smoking. I’ve got an e-cig (a Titan) which I hardly use, but came in really handy last winter in pubs, and when I came down with flu.

The real reason for the ban is probably to protect Big Pharma’s profits from nicotine patches (which will remain legal, natch). Patches have about a 1% success rate at weaning smokers off tobacco. But because using e-cigs is almost exactly like smoking, it’s much easier for smokers to quit smoking using them.

Either that, or antismoking campaigners want to stop people putting anything that looks like a cigarette in their mouths and even inhaling air through it.

The possibility of a ban on e-cigs has been foreseen, of course. What if e-cigs are just marketed as ‘flavour inhalers’ with no nicotine in them at all? That’ll probably happen now.

These nazis are storing up more and more trouble for themselves. They’re all just filthy bastards. And one day they’re going to be destroyed. Every single last one of them. And this measure will only serve to hasten that day.

P.S. F2C responds. And Pat Nurse. And Leg-iron. Plus Chris Snowdon. And now Anna Raccoon too!