Politics as it should be done

If only we had more politicians like Chris Davies MEP. He knew that the Tobacco Product Directive was being revised, but he knew nothing about e-cigarettes. So he decided to ask people to educate him. Now he knows a lot about e-cigarettes and will be responding to the European Commission accordingly.

Until a few months ago I had never heard of e-cigarettes. Since then I have had many letters and e-mails from users, have met with manufacturers, and have read widely on the subject. I am convinced that they can play a very effective role in helping confirmed smokers reduce or eliminate their dependence upon tobacco. Although the long term effects of using e-cigarettes has yet to be established it seems very likely to me that their use, rather than the continued smoking of cigarettes, is likely to be much less harmful to health and will prolong lives.

I am opposed to the introduction of restrictions on the sale and use of e-cigarettes by adults.

The European Commission has emphasised that it does not wish to ban the products but only to require them to be classified as medicines. However, this route involves significant costs and potential restrictions on their development and sale. It is true that e-cigarettes can be used as a medicinal nicotine replacement therapy but they can also be considered as a recreational drug like alcohol or tobacco cigarettes, albeit one which appears to be very much less harmful. It is the fact that they are said to be pleasurable to use that makes them so effective as a means of combatting addictive use of tobacco. I cannot see any value in allowing it to be easier for conventional cigarettes to be sold than e-cigarettes.

I am also opposed to the introduction of restrictions on the nicotine content of e-cigarettes. The user is the best person to judge what level of nicotine is appropriate to meet their needs, although clear information should be provided and the purity of the contents guaranteed.

I have tabled a series of amendments along these lines. I do believe that the Commission should review the properties of e-cigarettes and, if necessary, put forward separate proposals at a later date, and I do believe that the products should be labelled to point out that nicotine is addictive and may harm health, but this amounts to light-touch regulation not the heavy handed approach currently being pursued.

Well done, sir.

Other politicians take note. Representative democracy is not rocket science.

Go read the whole thing.

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Forbidden dissent

A couple of weeks ago, a bunch of medical temperance types held a meeting in the European Parliament to push for minimum pricing. I nearly fell off my chair when I read this comment attributed to a representative from the Royal College of Physicians...

When mentioning the Scottish MUP scheme he explained that the measure was part of the Scottish Nationalist Party Manifesto and that, as a rule, it was forbidden to oppose the Manifesto once voted on. Thus, he highlighted that the current debates were actually profoundly anti-democratic.

What fresh jackbootery is this?! I realise that Scotland is going to hell in hardcart, but I didn't know it was "forbidden to oppose the Manifesto" of the ruling party.

Perhaps he was misquoted? Let's ask someone who was there, namely EU sock-puppet supremo Monika Kosinka of the European Public Health Alliance...

Ms. Kosinka was born in a communist country. Can you tell? There is, of course, a massive difference between a democracy and an elected dictatorship.

The charmers of public health aren't very keen on free and open discussion, as you might expect from people whose arguments are wafer-thin. For example, the National Rifle Association recently referred to the debate about gun control as a "culture war". You don't have to be a gun nut to see that they the right to say that, but not if you're the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton...

Horton wrote a book called Health Wars. Book him, Danno.

Kosinka has form for wanting the authorities to pounce on anyone she disagrees with. The Commentator recently reported her excitement about post-Leveson newspaper regulation. All it took was for them to report the results of a survey for her to want to unleash the hounds...

And journalists are not the only people who she wants to see clapped in irons...

Like 77% of Scots, I didn't vote for the SNP. Nor did I vote for the EU, the Royal College of Physicians, the EPHA, the Alcohol Health Alliance or any of the other state-funded authoritarian creeps who think they know better than me how to live my life. But even if the whole world went insane and I was the only person who didn't vote for them, I would not be "forbidden" from opposing their ridiculous ideas.

As John Stuart Mill put it: "If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind." That's not "profoundly anti-democractic". It's called civilisation.


UPDATE

 
In the topsy-turvy world of public health, quoting someone's exact words constitutes "smearing", apparently. Glibly describing someone as a 'lapdog apologist for corporate interests', on the other hand, is perfectly reasonable. Go figure.

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The wages of failure

That's all sorted then. The Queen's Speech contained no mention of minimum pricing or plain packaging so it is likely that both of these ill-considered policies have been kicked into the long grass until after the next election. Well done to the government for seeing sense. Let's hope the puritanical, prohibitionist juggernaut is starting to turn in this country.

Let's also hope that the government takes a closer look at the Department of Health's countless astroturf groups who have squandered millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on these two campaigns. They will be crying into their mineral water today, as will a certain Australian sociologist (be sure to read Nannying Tyrants' investigation into Simple Simon, by the way).

Some of the DoH's sockpuppets may even miss out on a bonus because of the coalition's refusal to capitulate. How tragic that would be, but at least they know that the money will still keep rolling in for the time being...

The future of Fresh and Balance, the North-East's two public health campaign groups, has been secured for at least the next two years.

Until recently Fresh - which campaigns for a reduction in the use of tobacco products - and Balance - which campaigns for a reduction in the consumption of alcohol - had been funded by NHS primary care trusts in the region.

But when PCTs were abolished, both agencies had to appeal to local authorities to provide funding.

Colin Shevells, director of Balance, said: "The funding we have secured from the 12 North-East local authorities is the same as before but for the first time we have got a two year contract."

There's nothing easier than spending other people's money, is there? And we're not talking pennies here...

The agreement means that Fresh has an annual budget of £713,000 and Balance has a budget of £680,000 per annum.

Guess what they're going to be lobbying for...

The main priority for Fresh is to secure plain-packaging for tobacco products and Balance is pushing for a minimum price per unit of alcohol to be introduced in England.

You read that right. £1.4 million* of taxpayers' money has been awarded to two astroturf groups to campaign for policies that the government has just rejected. This is both absurd and outrageous. How about some joined up government? Is central government even aware of this?


* £2.8 million really, since the funding is secure for two years.
 

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The gateway excuse

I was on BBC Radio Sussex talking about e-cigarettes this morning. You can listen here from about ten minutes in. The item was ostensibly about a headteacher banning e-cigarettes in a school in Hove, but it soon expanded to deal with tobacco harm reduction in general and the 'gateway hypothesis' in particular.

I have also written a blogpost for the IEA on the subject here.

The ban itself is uncontroversial and inconsequential—the headteacher seemed perplexed by the media attention and conceded that he knew of very few pupils who use e-cigarettes—but the reasons given for it are more concerning. The letter sent to parents claimed that e-cigarettes "may be acting as a gateway into smoking, rather than a way of stopping". In other words, non-smokers start using e-cigarettes and then progress to smoking. E-cigarettes are therefore part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

Do go read the whole thing.

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E-cigarette workshop

Today, the EU will be holding a "workshop" (a word that should only be used by people working in light industry) on e-cigarettes. Hosted by Europe's most dangerous woman, Linda McAvan MEP, it is heavily biased towards the prohibitionist point of view. This means lots of think-of-the-children, precautionary principle bollocks, as the slides below indicate.

You can watch proceedings on Vapour Trails TV. Also, be sure to read Clive Bates' latest post about this madness. 

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Spend, spend, spend

Reading a microwaved press release from the Ramblers Association I noticed this...

Anna Soubry, minister for Public Health, attended one of the Ramblers' walks yesterday at Attenborough Nature Centre in Beeston, Nottinghamshire. She insisted the Government was not cutting public health spending, and had increased the budget given to local authorities for it by up to 10 per cent.

Oh, well done Anna. So much for the coalition's "number one priority" of reducing the deficit.

It's no wonder the government is struggling to get public spending under control, let alone pay off any debt, when the minister of one of its least essential departments—public health—is boasting about her profligacy. If the coalition can't reduce spending at the Department of Health's propaganda division, what chance is there of making meaningful cuts elsewhere?

The position of Minister for Public Health didn't exist until 1997 and there is a good case for getting rid of it. Instead, the coalition has created yet another bureaucratic public health quango and continues to waste large sums of money getting its sockpuppets to lobby the government. It is, to borrow a word from Ms. Soubry, twattery.

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EU Committee savages Tobacco Products Directive

This is turning into quite the good news week. Not only do numerous reports say that the UK government has dropped the barmy plain packaging plan, but the EU Committee on Legal Affairs has savaged the draft Tobacco Products Directive.

Firstly, the committee criticises the insupportable de facto ban on e-cigarettes (and, implicitly, the prohibition of snus). It also makes the important point that manufacturers should be able to say that one product is less hazardous than another if the claim can be supported by science.

By prohibiting any labelling that suggests that a particular tobacco product is less harmful than others, the proposal causes an additional problem. The development and promotion of less harmful means of tobacco use is essential in order to support tobacco users to stop smoking cigarettes and the like. Manufacturers must be able to communicate that a certain product is less harmful than others if this is scientifically proven and if it is not misleading. This is not the only measure proposed that would make it more difficult to access reduced risk products. Article 18 of the proposal prohibits nicotine-containing products (NCP) such as e- cigarettes containing a certain nicotine level if they are not authorised pursuant to Directive 2001/83/EC (the Medicinal Products Directive). It is, however, quite unclear if these products (which are much less harmful than tobacco products) even fall under the scope of the Medicinal Products Directive. For products which do not fall under the Directive, this would effectively constitute a ban. Banning products which are less harmful than tobacco products and which can be a means of smoking cessation is certainly not in line with the public health aims of the proposal.

Consequently, the committee recommends that the sections pertaining to 'nicotine-containing products' (ie. non-tobacco products) should be deleted from the Tobacco Products Directive entirely. Rightly so.

It also notes that there is no 'market harmonisation' justification for banning menthol and slim cigarettes.

...it is difficult to see how the proposed (de facto) ban on menthol and on slim cigarettes could improve the functioning of the internal market. It is true that even prohibitions may, in certain circumstances, be regarded as harmonising measures, but this is only the case where "there are obstacles to trade or it is likely that such obstacles will emerge in future". Currently, however, not a single Member State has banned slim cigarettes or menthol or is even considering it. Thus, the ban will neither remove nor prevent the emergence of obstacles to fundamental freedoms.

It also rejects the idea of putting massive health warnings on tobacco packaging, let alone of introducing plain packaging. Like many other legal experts, they note that such is an infringement of intellectual property rights.

Some provisions in the Commission's proposal also raise serious doubts as to their conformity with fundamental rights such as the right to property, the right to freedom of expression and information and the freedom to conduct business. These rights are enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (“the Charter”) and may only be limited pursuant to Article 52(1) of the Charter if the limitation is necessary, genuinely meets objectives of general interest and is proportional.

Certain of the proposed measures, especially regarding the packaging, do not meet these requirements. One example is the proposed increase in size of the health warnings to 75% of both the front and back surface of the packs (Article 9(1)(c)). This would severely reduce the space available for trademarks and product description. In practice, not even 25 % of the front and back surface would be available for the information provided by the producer, as national law requires additional features such as tax stamps and security features.

Intellectual property rights such as trademarks are explicitly covered by the right to property in Article 17 of the Charter. The CJEU held that warnings on the unit packages are admissible "in a proportion which leaves sufficient space for the manufacturers of those products to be able to affix other material, in particular concerning their trademarks". Reducing the space available on the front and back surfaces to less than 25% would, however, make it difficult to sufficiently distinguish the products of one producer from those of others, thereby depriving the trade marks of one of their main functions. The trade marks could also not properly fulfil their other functions such as its advertising function. This would also not be in accordance with national constitutional law as well as international treaties such as the TRIPS Agreement.

Bearing in mind the impact on intellectual property rights, it is more than surprising that the Commission did not even consider less restrictive measures such as smaller health warnings. Taking into account the importance of intellectual property rights and legitimate health objectives, it is suggested that health warnings should cover 50% of the front and back surface.

The committee also recommends that the section of the Directive which authorise the European Commission to reduce nicotine yields in cigarettes be deleted. It also opposes the pointless and bureaucratic regulations about the dimensions and size of cigarettes and their packets.

In short, it attempts to bring some sanity and common sense to the European Commission. Good on them. Let's hope MEPs are paying attention.

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