Well it's taken me a while but I've decided to send a strongly worded reply to my MP
I guess I was wounded that after I poured my heart out all I got was a standard boilerplate reply!
(you may need some time clear to read this
)
Thanks for your reply, I'm sorry that you haven't received my previous emails.
I sent them via the writetothem website so possibly that is the problem.
No matter, I appreciate you getting in contact with me now.
I would also like to apologise for me taking a week to reply to you, work has been pretty hectic recently and with a two year old and another on the way it can be hard to respond to my emails in as prompt a manner as I'd like.
As to your letter.
I have to be honest Jack there isn't a great amount of information in your mail that I haven't seen in other MP emails that have been posted by other e-cig users on the e-cig forums in the UK.
In fact it seems a standard conservative reply I have read from many other MPs on the e-cig forums.
I am an active member of two of the most popular UK forums
allaboute-cigarettes.proboards.com/ and
ukvapers.org/I just wanted to clarify a few points because I feel it's incredibly important that I share my views in a way that is clear and I didn't want you to think I was "giving up" nicotine.
Some people that aren't vapers (people who "smoke" with electronic cigarettes) may not understand my motivations or intentions in using an e-cig.
For nearly four months I haven't touched a cigarette so I'm now considered a non-smoker - which is nice.
But I am still a nicotine user and I'm happy with that, I enjoy using my e-cigs and I have no intention of giving up nicotine.
The past three and a half months haven't just been easy to avoid tobacco, they've been great fun!
I've got a new hobby now (e-cigs), I am involved in the social scene with forums and friends all over who are like minded individuals and love their nicotine addiction but like me want to supply that nicotine in an enjoyable and safe way to avoid harm to themselves or others around them.
I have no intention of "giving up" anything with the habit apart from the potential health risks associated with smoking.
Because I have no intention of quitting nicotine I don't need any form of Nicotine replacement therapy.
Therapy implies medicine that used to "treat" smoking so I can understand the misconception, but as I am neither ill or diseased I wanted to try and clear it up as such.
I use a NCP (Nicotine containing product) not a NRT (Nicotine Replacement Therapy.)
There's a distinction - one is used to continue the habit and enjoyment of nicotine but with tobacco cessation the other is to wean yourself off nicotine for nicotine cessation.
As nicotine is a fairly benign drug that studies has shown can even be beneficial I'm happy with my habit/ addiction/ dependency or whatever anyone wants to categorise it as.
I use e-cigs because they are a harm reduction device, I can enjoy the positives with none of the associated negatives of smoking. In my mind I am the equivalent of someone who likes a few drinks but switches to non-alcoholic drinks to avoid the potential health implications from drinking alcohol.
I couldn't ever imagine non-alcoholic drinks being classified as medicine so I'm utterly flummoxed why e-cigs would be classed as a medicine.
E-cigs should be classed as Harm reduction not nicotine cessation (NRT) or as a medicine in general.
I see the very real threat of people accepting e-cigs but only as a smoking cessation device as being just as bad for public health as medicinal regulation of usable levels of nicotine like the EU are planing.
If someone wants to quit nicotine they can use NRT paid for by the tax payer and supplied for free by the NHS, yet when I want to stop smoking but not relatively harmless nicotine using my own money and costing the tax payer nothing (apart from lost tobacco tax, but that's another story) the EU want's to remove my hobby and enjoyment and brand me as ill or diseased to go and beg my doctor for e-cigs at the tax payers expense?
Or do they want to leave me with the option of buying utterly useless heavily regulated NCP off the shelf that won't actually do anything for me at all?
So we come down to this, if I can't get a substitute for tobacco from retail and I can only get nicotine in usable levels from tobacco itself - what are my options?
Would you agree that by restricting or limiting the usefulness (or efficacy, if you will) of the only viable tobacco substitute - that leaves tobacco as the only viable option?
Would you also agree that by restricting or reducing the efficacy of a tobacco substitute all it might achieve is pushing people to the tobacco industries open arms, Which is the very thing the EU is trying to avoid with this directive?
On the subject of regulation of NCPs, there is already a framework in place with voluntary code of conduct including CHiP compliment labelling, warning labels and childproof bottles, a refusal to sell nicotine products to under 18s and warnings to not use nicotine products unless you are a smoker - what more could be needed?
There is already an industry body and that can audit it's members to make sure they live up to the high standards that are expected in any e-cig or liquid (ECITA.)
The devices themselves as well as the liquids already come under Trading standards regulations for consumer safety and the liquids are subject to food hygiene standards that can be monitored by the trade body ECITA and enforced by Trading standards or the Food Standards Agency.
I can only think the medicines authority haven't got enough work to do if they want to start regulating consumer products as well!
A lot of vapers as consumers have no problems in legislation being enforced if vendors do anything to endanger their customers but so far the system seems to be working very well at the moment and if the governing bodies are given the tools to back up the legislation if need be no one has a problem with that.
The proof is in the pudding as they say, with the millions of litres of e-liquid and millions of devices that have been sold round the world there has been no evidence that I've ever heard of where someone has suffered acute harm from anything e-cig related.
How many other industries can claim the same?
And finally we come down to my other concern.
You may not realise that the e-cig industry in the UK isn't a cottage industry any-more, it's booming and just getting bigger everyday.
It's estimated that the industry will be worth £250 million by the end of this year and hundreds of jobs in the UK.
Are you really willing to let the EU decimate a burgeoning UK industry that also happens to have the potential to revolutionise the health impact smoking has?
If the EU are allowed to carry on unchecked or if the UK government adopts a similar over-regulation approach to e-cigs it would be a devastating blow on so many levels, well apart from the tobacco industry that will enjoy welcoming us ex-smokers back.
I hope that some of what I have written has helped you see that this is something very dear to my heart and I'm sure there are close to a million other vapers in the UK that share similar sentiments, we have mobilised and coordinated a response to this threat to our lives because we see smoking is changing and a lot of smokers are changing too I have to ask if our MPs and MEPs can manage to change with us?
