Ammendments to the TPD....Updated

[Digisatman]

Joe public would buy ie 30 ml @ 18mg plain nic but would be given the option of purchasing a separate said pre mixed flavour that he/she would have to mix together themselves.

Just like would sir like milk in his coffee.

 

[whipitup]

I hope so - if thats what happens.

 

[MittenKitten]

Link works. I see that Linda McAvan is a Labour MEP for Yorkshire & Humber. She wants to ban all flavourings in e-liquid. even the NHS inhalator has menthol flavour in it?

We have sent her an email, will see what she has to say.
Might need to pay her a visit.
If you live in Yorkshire just type her into name into google and send her a message.

 

[AnnaLaw]

Does 'no flavours' mean no flavours or dors it mean everything has to have a tobacco flavour?
Our dear Linda's amendment says that this is a mixture of tobacco and pharma and the tobacco part says that you can't have flavoured tobacco (probably to kill snus).
For us if it has no flavour we can add our own flavours but I could see it stopping new vapers. If it means that everything has to have a tobacco flavour and you can't stand those tobaccos that taste like your eating a pack of rollie tobacco, that makes it worse for all but new vapers. How do you get the horrible tobacco flavour out in order to turn it into vanilla custard (or whatever)?
Placing it under tobacco regs mean that vendors have to pay a lot of money to the EU for analysis and certification and if things stay as they are3, no more on-line sales and changes could be made in future without having to bother about annoying things like voting and democracy because the TPD allows future changes to anything by committee.

As Dr. Farsalinos said, we need more, such as flavours.
Agreed that manufacturers should have analyses, that ingredients are listed, and there should be an age limit. Agreed that flavours are the only bit that could prove dangerous in the future because of a lack of studies on inhaling them, but with no flavours couldn't that make nic base (which could be all you could buy) dangerous? It's practically odourless and tastless, clear, so couldm't that increase the risk of accidental use and even overdose (pretending the gag reflex doesn't exist, same as they pretend things that don't suit don't exist).

This is either Plan B (tobacco) or Plan C (mixed pharma and tobacco) and like Plan A, is intended to destroy the market. At the very least it would increase prices and make eliquid impossible to buy if you don't have a B & M shop nearby.
The 'flavours are meant to attract children' theory is getting harder to find anything to support. Anybody notice at the 'workshop' the Polish 'proof' of that was dropped (the few who'd tried ecigs were smokers) and replaced by a Hungarian one which, if genuine, would probably show that the kids who'd tried ecigs already smoked if it was analysed properly and bothered finding out how many of the kids smoked.

I think that its time to write a lot more letters about flavours as well as continueing education. Would I have bothered with vaping with no flavours? Probably not. Would I have carried on vaping with just fake tobacco? I doubt it, and if the flavour improved to taste like sigarettes, that would make returning to smoking easier I think.

So I think this is a bit better but not good enough and Rebacca Taylor's amendments, creating a new category, are the best so far.

 

[Alan]

Don't shoot me down in flames here but let me make a suggestion...

How about we all keep vaping a secret? Consider the inevitable...

Governments make a huge income from smokers. A quick Google says that the UK HMRC raised 12.1 billion quid between excise and VAT for 2011-2012 from tobacco. That figure was up 1 billion from the previous year, so it's probably more like 13 billion last year. They don't want to you to stop buying fags. They might make it look like they do, but they don't. Actually, again according to a quick Google, the NHS costs £110 billion/year, so tobacco alone paid for more than a tenth of the whole UK health service! One MEP actually has the cahones to tell it like it is, as per this thread...

http://www.planetofthevapes.co.uk/f...action-to-stop-loss-of-tax-revenue-from-ecigs

If you've not read it, he pretty much says Italy has lost 7.6% (132 million euros) of baccy tax income, partly from e-cig sales, in the first two months of 2013, and what are we gonna do about it?

So, realistically, as the scene continues to grow, and less people buy fags, the government coffers shall shrink and that's no good. So what'll they do about it? They could ban it somehow but that'll not look good cos remember they're kidding on they want people to stop smoking and vaping seems to do just that. They could maybe get away with a ban if only they could somehow get some super-respected survey to say it was bad for you, but that's not happening (so far). Or they could render it useless by limiting nic strength or something. That might look good cos they've still allowed it, but in a properly controlled and everyone-seated-in-an-orderly-fashion sort of way. They'd be able to tax it and still accumulate loads of income for their pharmacutical company buddies along the way. Hell they'd even be able to count how many smokers have quit and get brownie points for it. And they'd still get shed loads of income from the smokers who try it and discover it doesn't work cos there's no nic in it. Sure, if they control it there'll always be a black market aspect, but that exists on baccy at the mo anyway (currently 9%, down from 20% ten years ago), most law-abiders will play by the rules and buy the one with the wee safety leaflet enclosed.

So what's the verdict? It IS getting regulated and taxed and they're getting their cut, the sooner the better from their side. The best we can do is encourage people to continue smoking and keep vaping to ourselves - unregulated and cheap.

Spread the word - smoking's great, vaping sucks! lol

 

[AnnaLaw]

Don't shoot me down in flames here but let me make a suggestion...

How about we all keep vaping a secret? Consider the inevitable...

Governments make a huge income from smokers. A quick Google says that the UK HMRC raised 12.1 billion quid between excise and VAT for 2011-2012 from tobacco. That figure was up 1 billion from the previous year, so it's probably more like 13 billion last year. They don't want to you to stop buying fags. They might make it look like they do, but they don't. Actually, again according to a quick Google, the NHS costs £110 billion/year, so tobacco alone paid for more than a tenth of the whole UK health service! One MEP actually has the cahones to tell it like it is, as per this thread...

http://www.planetofthevapes.co.uk/f...action-to-stop-loss-of-tax-revenue-from-ecigs

If you've not read it, he pretty much says Italy has lost 7.6% (132 million euros) of baccy tax income, partly from e-cig sales, in the first two months of 2013, and what are we gonna do about it?

So, realistically, as the scene continues to grow, and less people buy fags, the government coffers shall shrink and that's no good. So what'll they do about it? They could ban it somehow but that'll not look good cos remember they're kidding on they want people to stop smoking and vaping seems to do just that. They could maybe get away with a ban if only they could somehow get some super-respected survey to say it was bad for you, but that's not happening (so far). Or they could render it useless by limiting nic strength or something. That might look good cos they've still allowed it, but in a properly controlled and everyone-seated-in-an-orderly-fashion sort of way. They'd be able to tax it and still accumulate loads of income for their pharmacutical company buddies along the way. Hell they'd even be able to count how many smokers have quit and get brownie points for it. And they'd still get shed loads of income from the smokers who try it and discover it doesn't work cos there's no nic in it. Sure, if they control it there'll always be a black market aspect, but that exists on baccy at the mo anyway (currently 9%, down from 20% ten years ago), most law-abiders will play by the rules and buy the one with the wee safety leaflet enclosed.

So what's the verdict? It IS getting regulated and taxed and they're getting their cut, the sooner the better from their side. The best we can do is encourage people to continue smoking and keep vaping to ourselves - unregulated and cheap.

Spread the word - smoking's great, vaping sucks! lol

Great idea, but I think its too late for that, same as by the time the EU put ecigs in the TPD because pharma complained that they could cause loss of profit back in '08, it was too late to put the genie back in the bottle.

How about if all nic is extracted from plants other than tobacco? There's a US company that pays no tobacco tax because they extract the nic from tomatoes and you can't call food plants tobacco.

I think MEPs should be informed that tobacco isn't the only source of nic, and do they plan to put aubergines, tomatoes and potatoes in the TPD?

The fact is that governments are majprity shareholders in all tobacco companies because 90% of profit goes to the government. The rest is shared almost equally between tobacco and pharma, with pharma maybe making a bit more.
But medicines are tax-exempt.

I'm wondering if that's the reason for dropping the medicine route.
VAT on ecigs and liquids are nowhere near as much as tobacco duty and cigarette sin taxes. How can you put a sin tax on something a lot safer?
Of course if a company goes the pharma route and can prove flavours safe, or safer than smoking, they'd be able to use them.

 

[steffijade]

The fact is that governments are majprity shareholders in all tobacco companies because 90% of profit goes to the government.

Spot on.

 

[Szaxe]

 

[Numpty]

Just a few thoughts from a Numpty.

Surely it's good some proof of the ingredients in these juices will be required and clear information as to the ratios used being as we will be ingesting it via our lungs, many of these liquids are coming in from China which has a somewhat dubious history as far as safety standards.

Lead painted toys for children, toxic baby milk, electronic components prone to bursting into flames, ridiculously high mercury levels and counterfeit rohs compliance labelling the list goes on and on.

As far as no flavouring, is that such a biggy being as it will just mean your juice will arrive as a two part pre measured kit, worst way you'll have to do your own steeping from scratch.

If it's as I understand it and my take on what's going on is correct, who would prefer the safety aspect over the inconvenience of pouring one small bottle into another ?

They will try for tighter restrictions and controls as that's how they position things they intend to tax the ass off of but I think they will have a long hard battle with this one as more than a few legal bigwigs have pointed out holes and rights issues they will struggle to plug.

If it wasn't for the tax revenue tobacco and alcohol would probably be class B drugs so we know how it works, you can fuck your health as much as you like as long as you pay them for the 'privilege'.

 

[AnnaLaw]

We have amendments that do that, those by Rebecca Taylor and Chris Davies.
McAven wants to class ecigs as tobacco, everything she describes are part of the Tobacco Directive.

As for her excuse that British schoolchildren are vaping in school, apart from the fact I think some media would have picked up on that, hasn't she read the ASH report that says ecigs aren't attractive to non-smokers and children choose tobacco.

On the surface it might look good, tobacco-flavoured liquid only, no online sales, manufacturers paying the EU for analysis and not being able to sell anything until they get a certificate. This is the plan for tobacco, and another part of the tobacco plan is for a committee to decide everything including nic levels in future without any tiresome democracy.

Has anybody thought it strange that McAven moves it to Tobacco when Italy complains about lost tax revenue due to people vaping instead of smoking. They know that unless an acceptable halm-reduction consumer product is available smoking won't drop below 20%.