A new provisional deal on the legislation of e-cigarettes was agreed yesterday in the EU parliament. These new regulations that where included in the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) set out to restrict the types of products that can be sold and leaves the door open for a EU wide ban on electronic cigarettes.

The Tobacco Products Directive which aims to reduce the harm from tobacco through legislation has been hotly contested over the last few months. Intense lobbying from tobacco and pharmaceutical companies has led to the inclusion of draconian restrictions on e cigarette products and will lead to reduced availability of e-cigs, higher prices and ultimately less current smokers switching to a less harmful alternative and current uses forced back to tobacco.

Tobacco smoking kills 700,000 people each year in the EU and 5 million worldwide while generating billions of dollars for tobacco companies and the pharmaceutical industry who produce ineffective tobacco cessation products. Electronic cigarettes has been shown to be a much safer alternative, more effective in helping people quit and not a gateway to tobacco smoking. In the 10 years electronic cigarettes have been used not a single death is attributed to using them.



The current legislation still does not tackle Why EU can’t stop Electronic Cigarettes – New Law is Unworkable & Doomed To Fail.



main points of the new legislation:

Refillable e cigarettes will be banned if 3 member states choose to restrict them.

Maximum nicotine strength will be restricted to 20mg/ml reducing the effectiveness for heavy smokers.

Maximum size of refill bottles will be 10ml (only a 2 day supply for heavy users).

Only e-cigs that provide a consistent dose of nicotine will be allowed (cigarettes and NRT’s do not achieve this).

Devices must be able to be refilled with no leakage whatsoever (no device on the market currently achieves this).

Full article text can be found here.



Comments from MEP’s

(new legislation) could have the perverse effect of pushing people who have moved from real cigarettes to electronic cigarettes back to the more harmful option.

Refillable e-cigarettes would almost certainly be banned, and only the weakest products will be generally available. As many smokers begin on stronger e-cigs and gradually reduce their dosage, making stronger e-cigs harder to come across will encourage smokers to stay on tobacco. – Mr Callanan MEP

“Unless manufacturers are able to adapt their products to accommodate disposable cartridges, I worry that a substantial number of e-cigarette users may be pushed back to tobacco, which is the exact opposite of what the tobacco directive is supposed to achieve. – Rebecca Taylor MEP

(electronic cigarette) health benefits are enormous compared to smoking tobacco and they can be a game-changer in the fight against smoking-related disease. They should never have been included within legislation intended to regulate tobacco products.

So long as conventional cigarettes are available everywhere the restrictions on e-cigs should be minimal. Too many EU governments simply don’t get it. The controls they favour will lead to people dying unnecessarily who might otherwise have switched from smoking cigarettes to using a product not now associated with any deaths at all. – Chris Davies MEP

There is still time to make your voice heard. If you want to save ecigs Contact your local MEP to let them know your views and share this article to make others aware.