Category: Law

South Africa draft tobacco Bill – protects cigarette trade and denies smokers options to quit

South Africa smoking prevalence – Tobacco Atlas

Source: South Africa Factsheet – Tobacco Atlas

David Abrams, Ray Niaura, David Sweanor and I have submitted comments on the draft tobacco and vaping legislation under discussion in South Africa. South Africa is always influential in low and middle income countries, especially in Africas, and is always an important player in WHO meetings.

The draft legislation is almost completely disproportionate in its approach to tobacco harm reduction technologies. It mostly treats reduced-risk products as though they are the same as smoking products. The alternative philosophy, which we advocate, is to adopt ‘risk proportionate regulation’ that encourages (or rather, does not inhibit) smokers from using vaping, novel nicotine products, heated tobacco or smokeless tobacco products to quit smoking.

Our full 20-page submission is here.

The short summary is reproduced below. Continue reading “South Africa draft tobacco Bill – protects cigarette trade and denies smokers options to quit”

Time for the Government of Sweden to get behind snus and tobacco harm reduction

Stockholm Syndrome: is the Government of Sweden captured by baseless tobacco control dogma about snus?

One of the more puzzling things about snus is the reluctance of Sweden’s government to claim credit for what is by any standards an extraordinary public health achievement. So here I write to the relevant ministers requesting that they acknowledge Sweden’s success, show some leadership and promote the concept of tobacco harm reduction.  The challenge to the EU prohibition of snus brought by Swedish Match and New Nicotine Alliance provides an opportunity for the Government of Sweden to change its approach.  I wrote the following heartfelt plea, attaching the letter that 18 comrades sent sent to the European Commission: Lifting the unjustified European Union ban on oral tobacco or “snus” in the light of ongoing legal action hoping it might encourage a more constructive pro-health, pro-trade, post-enlightenment approach.  Continue reading “Time for the Government of Sweden to get behind snus and tobacco harm reduction”

Letter to European Commissioner for Better Regulation on the worst regulation in the EU – the snus ban

A damaging regulation that should not exist should not be defended in court

Updated 19 July 2017 with the reply.

Eighteen of us have written a detailed letter to Mr Frans Timmerman, the EU’s Commissioner for Better Regulation (amongst other things) drawing his attention to one of the worst regulations in the EU, the ban on oral tobacco, better known as snus. This ban is now facing challenge in the Court of Justice of the European Union (case C 151/17) by a producer, Swedish Match, and the consumer group, New Nicotine Alliance (see NNA background on the case).

The letter is available here (PDF): Lifting the unjustified European Union ban on oral tobacco or “snus” in the light of ongoing legal action

The covering email below outlines the main arguments detailed in the letter. Continue reading “Letter to European Commissioner for Better Regulation on the worst regulation in the EU – the snus ban”

Challenging the proposed e-cigarette prohibition in Taiwan

Vaping in Taiwan – the approaching darkness of prohibition or a new dawn for rational policy-making?

The government of Taiwan has been consulting on amendment its Tobacco Hazards Prevention and Control Act. Article 14 of the amendment bill bans the manufacture, import, sale, and display of e-cigarettes (unless authorised as a pharmaceutical product).  See newspaper coverage.  The original Taiwan Chinese language bill is available online and a vendor has produced a summary in English.

See my full response here (PDF) and the summary below

Obviously, I strongly advise against this measure. E-cigarettes present an important strategy to reduce the harm caused by smoking and offer a way to achieve rapid reductions in smoking through market-based means. There is no evidence anywhere in the world that e-cigarettes add to harms associated with smoking.

The danger of a prohibition of e-cigarettes is that it will protect the cigarette trade from competition, increase smoking and harm health. This is exactly the opposite of what the Act and the government are trying to achieve. The summary page is below.  Continue reading “Challenging the proposed e-cigarette prohibition in Taiwan”

Bad science, accountability and courage – speech by AG Tom Miller

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller
Tom Miller: “public policy through facts and science rather than ideology”

On 17 November 2016, the Iowa Attorney General, Tom Miller, gave a speech at the E-cigarette Summit 2016 (with biography) on e-cigarettes examining the claims of anti-vaping activists, and their scientific, ethical and legal basis. The full text of the speech is here: America Needs England (PDF). I reported an earlier speech here.

The speech should be widely read, especially in the United States. To facilitate an informed reading, I have reproduced the speech here, with some thematic subheadings, source links and illustrations [these are my additions].

Continue reading “Bad science, accountability and courage – speech by AG Tom Miller”

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller gives outstanding speech on smoking, vaping and public health – listen

Quite simply the best speech I have ever heard on tobacco and nicotine policy, science and ethics. From Tom Miller one of the architects or the United States Master Settlement Agreement and Chair of the Truth Initiative.  A model of decency, humility and rigorous scientific reflection, in my opinion.

The speech was given over lunch at the Food and Drug Law Institute Tobacco Conference, 27 October 2016 in Washington DC.

General Miller’s speaking notes are available here (check against delivery).

First build your echo chamber – how WHO excludes dissent and diversity

walter-lippmann-quote-where-all-think-alike-no-one-thinks-very-much

Most international treaties welcome observers and diversity of opinion. Not the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which has its next major Conference of the Parties on 7-12 November 2016, in Delhi.  The WHO carefully choose who it allows to observe its secretive proceedings, ensuring only organisations that agree with it are admitted as observers. It betrays the intellectual void at the heart of the WHO and its treaty – it simply cannot cope with scrutiny, challenge or reconciling other interests or constraints. A comparison with the approach to observers taken by the UN convention governing climate change is instructive… Continue reading “First build your echo chamber – how WHO excludes dissent and diversity”

New Nicotine Alliance calls for repeal of EU e-cigarette regulation and snus ban

trash

New Nicotine Alliance proposes that the forthcoming Great Repeal Act is used to repeal pointless, burdensome and restrictive EU regulation of e-cigarettes and to lift the illegal, unethical and anti-scientific ban on snus.  This may be a ‘quick win’ from Brexit at the point of the departure of the UK from the EU.  The government will need to show that there are at least some benefits.

The Great Repeal Act will not actually repeal that much of substance. It will mainly just convert the vast body of EU law that applies in the UK to domestic law. But there is scope for some crowd-pleasing repeals of especially poor regulation, of which the TPD provisions related to tobacco harm reduction are the most obvious candidate.

Here is the NNA letter to Secretary of State, Jeremy Hunt.  Continue reading “New Nicotine Alliance calls for repeal of EU e-cigarette regulation and snus ban”

A strong case to overturn the EU snus ban – 10 reasons why legal action should succeed this time

snus prohibition
Unscientific, unethical and unlawful EU snus ban

 

Good news confirmed today: Swedish Match, the main European snus manufacturer, will take legal action to overturn the European Union ban on snus -see Reuters 1 July 2016: Swedish Match to challenge EU snus ban in UK court. This ban is possibly the most absurd and harmful piece of legislation the European Union has ever concocted, and its demise is long overdue.

The EU snus ban was introduced in 1992 (directive 92/41/EEC) and reaffirmed in 2001 (2001/37/EC) and reaffirmed again in 2014 in the Tobacco Products Directive 2014/40/EU Article 17. The ban only exists because of posturing by self-indulgent and negligent politicians backed by prohibitionist harm-inducing NGOs.  It has no scientific, ethical or legal justification whatsoever (see Death by regulation: the EU ban on low-risk oral tobacco) and can only be causing harm to health by denying smokers elsewhere in Europe benign alternatives to smoking that work so well in Sweden.

In 2003, Swedish Match challenged the identical ban in the previous Tobacco Products Directive 2001/37/EC (Article 8) and failed. See Case C-210/03 before the ECJ. However, a great deal has changed since then and even in 2003/4 I think they were unlucky to face a politicised court and improper scientific assessments of risk pushed by anti-scientific prohibitionists. But why should a legal challenge succeed now when a challenge failed in 2003-4? There are at least ten reasons to believe it will succeed this time.  Continue reading “A strong case to overturn the EU snus ban – 10 reasons why legal action should succeed this time”

No surrender! The fight against harmful, incompetent and pointless European law goes on

No surrender

Fantastic to see the increasingly powerful UK vaping consumer voice tearing into poor policy and bad law that will do nothing but harm while meddling incompetently in the free choices of adults and free movement of goods. The Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) and its UK implementing regulations are truly dreadful.

Here are three things to look at:

  1. New Nicotine Alliance – Letter to the Department of Health – on the harmful unintended consequences of the TPD
  2. New Nicotine Alliance – Letter to the Prime Minister – on the escape from the TPD
  3. House of Lords fatal motion and #LordsVapeVote campaign TAKE ACTION!

Continue reading “No surrender! The fight against harmful, incompetent and pointless European law goes on”