ECCA et al: e-cigs can "rid the world of tobacco"
Monday, January 20, 2014 at 18:40 Over the weekend I spoke to several journalists about e-cigarettes.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of time I have spent supporting their use.
I have criticised councils, hospitals and others who want to see them banned, and I have attacked those who want their sale, promotion or manufacture severely restricted.
This evening, via this blog, I read a letter from eleven e-cig associations that allegedly represent the "vapers of Europe".
One of them is the Electronic Cigarette Consumer Association of the United Kingdom, better known as ECCA UK.
The letter calls on MEPs to "remove from the TPD [Tobacco Products Directive] any reference that treats electronic cigarettes as tobacco products".
Fair enough. What bothered me was this:
All recent evidence shows that [electronic cigarettes] should be welcomed and encouraged as a unique opportunity potentially to rid the world of tobacco [my italics].
So that's the end game, is it?
While Forest supports the development of e-cigs and other nicotine delivery systems because we are committed to choice, ECCA, their allies and their cheerleaders in the blogosphere sound more like Tobacco Control every day.
Who could have predicted that?!
Reader Comments (5)
Indeed. Very disheartening to see the e-cig community act as if they're better than smokers..
'Vapers' come in all shapes and sizes just like smokers. In fact almost ALL 'vapers' were/are smokers. The problems start when MONEY is involved. A Trade Association looks after the Trade as they see it. They are NOT the voice of the consumer.
Some 'vapers' do think that ecigs are the 'deliverance from evil' but most just 'smoke' them.
These are consumer orgs. Not trade.
Where does it say Vapers feel superior? It simply say Ecigs could overtake and eventually replace lit tobacco. That's a view shared by many non-Vapers (business analysts and the like). Tobacco companies also know this.
It's why I can't support ecigs. The vaper "movement" doesn't give a toss if we're all forced onto them as long as their product of choice is saved and they intend to save it by bashing us and our product of choice. Work together? Not on your life.
Simon, I don't think eciggers need Forest. They have Ecca. Tobacco consumers have no one else standing up for us. It's nice that you recognise that.
It's terrifying that people who see their lifestyle choices being illegitimately impinged upon by the professionally ignorant choose to (attempt to) speak the language of those who impinge. Do they think it will work? Do they think that in the event that the tobacco control endgame were achieved, and a total ban imposed, that e-cigs wouldn't be next on the hotlist? As they are now?
The e-cig restrictions have almost no support outside of the troublingly influential fields of public health and government. There is no need to appeal to the dark side to win support. We need them to lose their power, not merely channel it towards someone else. It takes a special kind of idiot not to understand that.
I smoke and I vape, and I'm appreciative of all people who stand up for my rights to do so on the simple grounds of freedom. That's all that is needed. If it fails then it fails, offering up someone else's freedom as a bargain to get my own isn't to be contemplated.