E-cigarette row could block new EU tobacco rules -diplomats

[jayfish]

Source: Reuters

Disagreement over how to regulate the booming market for electronic cigarettes is holding up a deal on strict new rules governing tobacco products in the European Union, diplomats said on Monday.

In talks aimed at finalising the legislative proposals by the end of the year, the European Parliament has pushed for a light touch approach to e-cigarettes, which it regards as a less harmful alternative to smoking.

But with a lack of clear evidence on the long-term health impact of e-cigarettes, EU governments have sought more restrictive rules, saying the amounted of nicotine contained in the cigarettes should be limited.

That could threaten the continued growth of a fast-growing market that some analysts say could eclipse the $700 billion a year regular cigarette market within 10 years.

Unless negotiators can reach a compromise in two final rounds of talks this week, the row could delay by up to two years the adoption of a wider package of tough new anti-tobacco controls.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/16/eu-tobacco-law-idUSL6N0JV3JB20131216

[Lenomsky]

1. Hey Jack ..

Do some testing but really water vapour plus some nicotine even if some additional compounds is a far better alternative to the hundreds of carcinogens in tobacco.

[Bozvotros]

2. The FDA planning to take control over e cigarettes

The WHO and FDA have come down against e-cigarettes despite the lack of evidence they cause any harm. Every study that purported to show harm has turned out to be either poorly designed or that at the very least ecigarettes are no more harmful than traditional nicotine replacement products. And more studies are demonstrating that e cigs are much more effective at getting people to stop smoking without medications, without expensive OTC nicotine replacements or counseling. In short, they are almost a "cure" for tobacco dependency.

So why is the FDA and WHO so down on them? You tell me. How many billions in taxes are at stake and billions more in medication costs taken from the coffers of the FDA's sponsors? Who fines Big Pharma a fraction of the frauds they perpetrate defiantly and often openly? Who never prosecutes anyone in Big Pharma for bogus studies by big name doctors who haven't even looked at the study they supposedly participated in? Who allows Big Pharma to push poisonous drugs with side effects that include fatalities, psychosis, seizures, stroke etc right on the market even when they barely put a dent in the symptoms they are alleged to treat.

We need to face the fact that the FDA is owned by Big Pharma and possibly WHO too. The fact that they want to control and limit e-cigarettes whose side effect profile is almost non existent is proof of e-cigarette's threat to Big Pharma and the gravy train of taxes the government extorts from smokers who die faster and earlier and save the government money over the long haul. Nicotine lozenges and gum cost only a few pennies more than the same non nicotine products and cost 30 times as much. But that is OK.

Fuck the fucking FDA and WHO, unless you happen to be on medications that make that impossible or have access to the medications that can make it possible again.