I heard rumour, govs secretly passing law.

[EthelKing]

And VaperCaper, I do think you are right. You make some very good points regarding the TPD and the EU Parliament.

Certainly the experts at the summit seemed to be in total agreement (except for two or three) that medical regulation would either fail upon legal challenge, or would be impossible to enforce as the number of people vaping grows and grows at the phenomenal rate it is.

They also agreed that once laws were introduced, they would be very hard to remove, and used the EU position on snus as an example. A product that obviously works, but banned on the basis of health concerns that have been disproved to the point that the standard cancer warnings have been removed from the product. But it is still banned for sale everywhere but two member states.

The optimist in me says everything will be fine, but the bastard pessimist seems to get the edge.

I do think that we, as individuals and as a community, need to keep up the pressure, and keep on reminding those in Westminster that we, and our votes, haven't gone away and will not go away any time soon.

 

[steffijade]

Call me a Harlequin Trousered Jester of a blazing optimist if you must, but they are not going to ban e-cigarettes. Not for any length of time anyway.

It would be a very unpopular law and would fly in the face of a lot of scientific research.

The EU presidency is currently with Lithuania, who are very pro ban. After the end of December the EU preisdency moves to Greece very anti ban. As I understand it right now they are scrambling like fuck (they being Linda McAvan and her cronies) to get the TPD passed before the end of the year to be the headline "lets be seen to be tough on smoking so we can all be smug to our constituents and tell them we are looking out for their health" kind of thing for Lithuania.

See the recent letter by Jeremy Hunt informing the tory MEPs and LibDemMEPs who got Am170 through the plenary vote recently that they've been very naughty boys and girls and the UK Govt. wants to regulate as medicines and they should all do well to remember that during the Trilogue thing that's happening now.

They might well manage to mangle the TPD to basically ban e-cigs by 2016. BUT and this is a larger than life, humungous monster of a Dwarfing J-Lo sized BUT there's a general election on the horizon in the UK and any party that wants to get re-elected is going to face an uphill battle to do that in 2015 if something like 15% of the UK electorate are vapers by that point and are all politically motivated to vote based on this point.

They aint seen nothing yet. The amount of noise we would all collectively raise and start making to our local MPs would be a lot, and legislation banning vaping would be very unpopular amongst vapers and friends/family of vapers who have seen an improvement in things since their friend/loved one started vaping.

The ship has bolted, the horse has sailed. Too late too late will be the cry, the window of opportunity to stifle vaping has long since passed them by.

I admire your optimism and sincerely hope that you're correct.

 

[VaperCaper]

I do think that we, as individuals and as a community, need to keep up the pressure, and keep on reminding those in Westminster that we, and our votes, haven't gone away and will not go away any time soon.

Dam right.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should sit back and it'll all be OK. I'm saying that we should definitely keep up the pressure and keep writing letters and talking with MPs and MEPs and making sure they know how strongly we feel and where our votes will be going.

The general election is a HUGE lever we can pull to our advantage though, nothing motivates a politician like the thought they might lose their seat, or might gain a seat where they have none.

 

[Mawsley]

I've made my feelings about politicians and the political process known a few times on this forum, probably too many times to be honest and folk must get fed up of reading my rants.. hence the succinct comment.

Make away, I love reading your comments about them

 

[Ninjaassasin1983]

See what you lot have made me do! I've just typed 1344 words on the matter on my flagship blog post. I blame that @Dexter m'self! I shant link it 'ere incase the kulr'd one has need to go mardy
Scratch that, I have clearance from Mother Ape: http://krakenecigs.com/blog/regulation-its-a-dirty-word-lets-clean-it-up/

Right on man

 

[Ninjaassasin1983]

I have just sent to my mp this letter with a copy of MrKraken's proposal
Dear Tom Greatrex,

I am writing to you today in light of the 2016 proposed legislation to regulate electronic cigarette products as medicines. This is a major concern for me and many others as since I have stopped smoking and taken up vaping as an alternative I feel much healthier and happier.
If this industry becomes strangulated by regulation it may die out and people would go back to smoking ordinary tobacco cigarettes in my opinion.
We are not saying that electronic cigarettes and nicotine products should be without regulation, we are aware of the many "market sellers" who are selling cheap and sometimes dangerous products unscrupulously.
But the vendors I buy from have real market knowledge and only sell good quality products thereby a licensing body would probably be the best bet.
I feel very strongly on this issue and would appreciate if you took the time to read the following article by a leading industry vendor who deals in good quality merchandise.

Thank you for your time.
Robert J Gleave.

 

[Ninjaassasin1983]

and my msp James Kelly

 

[MrKraken]

I have just sent to my mp this letter with a copy of @MrKraken's proposal
Dear Tom Greatrex,

I am writing to you today in light of the 2016 proposed legislation to regulate electronic cigarette products as medicines. This is a major concern for me and many others as since I have stopped smoking and taken up vaping as an alternative I feel much healthier and happier.
If this industry becomes strangulated by regulation it may die out and people would go back to smoking ordinary tobacco cigarettes in my opinion.
We are not saying that electronic cigarettes and nicotine products should be without regulation, we are aware of the many "market sellers" who are selling cheap and sometimes dangerous products unscrupulously.
But the vendors I buy from have real market knowledge and only sell good quality products thereby a licensing body would probably be the best bet.
I feel very strongly on this issue and would appreciate if you took the time to read the following article by a leading industry vendor who deals in good quality merchandise.

Thank you for your time.
Robert J Gleave.

Leading industry vendor? Hardly (sadly!) Maybe in another year

 

[Ninjaassasin1983]

Leading industry vendor? Hardly (sadly!) Maybe in another year

In terms of quality I and product knowledge I think you are - I was putting it in posh boy speak for them - what am I gonna write - makes Great liquids called minion farts and squid ink

also i'm printing your proposal out and i'm going to post it into 10 Downing street I've got the address for the pm's office if thats ok with you?