Over tens of thousands of riled up individuals have staunchly backed a bid which is set to reverse the highly controversial European rulings governing electronic cigarettes early this year. The implementation of these new rulings have sent several vaping enthusiasts on an outright fury that Britain has implemented and sided the EU on one of its most loathed orders titled the “Tobacco Products Directive 2014/14/EU (TPD)“.
The fear that has been brought to our attention by many critics have been expressed stating that these “draconian new regulations” will be responsible for the legislation of the “freewheeling” e-cigarette industry sending it out of existence and to be dubbed as nothing more than just history.
The critics have further stated that these rules are a sorry excuse of a tantamount attempt to a crackdown and shall result in a vapeopocalypse which shall force hundreds of British businesses to shut down for good thus forcing smokers back into their cold deadly shadows of an impossible-to-defeat old habit – traditional tobacco cigarettes. After all, we have all seen the outcomes of these reports conducted by several health institutions (including the government) and can certainly say without fear of defamation that smoking tobacco harms your lungs more than Mandonna’s post 2000 singing harms your ears (just kidding).
In the United Kingdom, the shocking figure of vapor enthusiast has reach a whopping 3 million as of 2015 which almost 18% of the regular adult smokers having switched from smoking tobacco to vaping e-cigarettes. This just further enhances the point of how very large the vaping industry is in the UK. As a result of the newly proposed vapor laws, many vape retailers have feared the worst with business being impacted on a large and unforeseeable scale which could potentially be the end of them.
Lord Callanan of the House of Lords filed a motion in opposition calling for the laws to be scrapped.
He reiterated that “The Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 [should] be annulled on the grounds that its restrictions on product choice and advertising of vaping devices were devised before evidence had accumulated that vaping was enabling many people to quit smoking, run counter to advice from the Royal College of Physicians to promote vaping and are so severe that they could force vapers back to smoking and create a black market with harmful products.”
Ever since the EU law was introduced, within a 24 hour window, an eye opening 25,000 people have signed a petition backing the motion, which is supported by a campaign on Twitter through the use of the hashtag #LordsVapeVote .
Petitioners were responsible for calling the House of Lords to “back Lord Callahan’s motion to stop harsh regulations on e-cigarettes which would force vapers back to smoking”.
“We urge our House of Commons to debate the implications for public health of the TPD on e-cigarettes,” they stated for further emphasis.
“And we plead with the Prime Minister to use his influence in Brussels to get a British opt-out from Article 20 before the EU referendum so this issue does not affect that vote.”
Several provisions within the Tobacco Products Directive include portions stating that the maximum size of a refill container shall be 10ml. Due to the size being only 10ml and how almost all vaping liquid these days use at least a 30ml bottle, it would be extremely difficult to follow but any person interested in converting to vaping from smoking conventionally will find it a major inconvenience and a deterrence.
The Directive further states that in the event a competent authority is of the opinion that a product risks the formulation of health issues and concerns, such products may be prohibited. As it is very difficult to identify exact health concerns/issues and their reasons, it risks the possibility of any authority claiming a vape product as risky without much evidence or non-bias approach which may result in a ban over all the member states affected.
It is a pure and blatant fact that in the United Kingdom, an approximate of up to 100,000 people die every single year due to the outcome of smoking which adds up to almost a million British lives forsaken to cigarettes in a single decade. E-cigarettes have proven themselves to be a better and healthier alternative however the introduction of the latest EU Directive may impact the likelihood of vapers to keep vaping and for conventional smokers to start converting to vaping.