Change.org - Halt the Restriction of E-Liquid Flavours

[Mitz]

How about a petition to get @Mitz to do a Guy Fawkes?

Surely some of the military aid sent to Ukraine has made its way on to the black market by now. Has anyone checked ebay?

 

[Simon G]

I was reading this the other day..

https://nnalliance.org/nnanews/news...d-packaging-are-misguided-and-will-cost-lives

It pretty much proves that the government aren't listening to anyone. "The government’s response to the recent public consultation has ignored the most knowledgeable experts in tobacco control"

"We regret that the government has taken a naïve and simplistic approach to the problems it set out to tackle, without properly assessing the evidence, and dismissing the testimonies of experts in the field."

The government has ignored Fresh and Balance – a tobacco control organisation in the north east where smoking rates are the highest in England
The government has ignored Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) – England’s foremost tobacco control charity
The government has also ignored stop smoking services who recognise that the convenience and wide choice of flavours is useful for helping smokers to switch to a safer product
Just this week, a study by University College London, funded by Cancer Research UK, found that a ban on single use vapes would “affect 2.6 million adults” and “could have substantial unintended consequences for people who smoke.” It further warned that it would “discourage use of e-cigarettes among people trying to quit smoking and may induce relapse among those who have already used disposables to quit.” The government has paid no heed to this, either.

It's also ignoring itself!!

The government’s ill thought-out response has even ignored the spirit of its own independent tobacco review in 2022 which recommended that government “embrace the promotion of vaping as an effective tool to help people to quit smoking tobacco” and identified that “the alternative is far worse.” Banning vaping products, implementing plain packaging, and restricting flavours is the opposite of an embrace.

Worse still, it has also ignored its own Health and Social Care Committee

Worst of all, the UK is quite rightly lauded for its world-leading policy of guiding smokers towards lower-risk nicotine alternatives such as e-cigarettes. These proposals not only risk trashing our proud reputation amongst credible global public health academics but will also lead to promotion of ignorance and poor policy in other countries which will cost lives worldwide.

...... what to do?

I've sent this article to to everyone I could think of, I think we should all sent it to our MP's (especially if you live in a tory area) and ask them for an explanation. Why are they ignoring the facts, why are they ignoring the advice of professionals, why are they ignoring their own recommendations and committees? .. and why are they trashing their reputation?

https://nnalliance.org/nnanews/news...d-packaging-are-misguided-and-will-cost-lives

It's not like nobody is fighting our side, they are, but they are being ignored.... lets try and make sure they can't be ignored.

 

[Simon G]

You might like to remind them that we are no longer in the EU and why taxing vaping (over the high VAT we pay already) is not something they should be supporting... for the reasons below.

https://nnalliance.org/campaigns/tax

EU tax consultation 2018 resources page

ACT NOW to prevent an EU wide tax on vaping

The European Commission is holding a public consultation into the taxation of tobacco and vaping products, ending on 3rd September. The Collective of EU Vaper Associations, is issuing an urgent call to action to ask you, the consumer, to respond to the consultation. Vaping has helped more than 7.5 million Europeans stop smoking and a further 9 million to cut down. If vaping is expensive smokers will not switch and vapers will go back to smoking.

• Making vaping more expensive will keep people smoking.
• Taxing vaping makes people think vaping is as harmful as smoking
• There is no case on principled or practical grounds to apply excise duties to vaping
  products
• The value to health and wellbeing associated with switching from smoking to
  vaping exceeds any benefits arising from revenue collection
• VAT is the only acceptable form of taxation on vaping products
• Taxing vaping products ultimately protects smoking
• Vape products are not tobacco products and do not belong in the Tobacco Excise Directive

 

[Simon G]

also, it's not really the government we are fighting against.... it's this.

 

[zouzounaki]

I am not aware of any specifically from Change, but I can't say that I've ever really paid any attention to what platform any petitions presented to the government originate from. But I am aware that petitions can be, and are, presented to the government and with sufficient support they garner a response.

If the person starting the petition has no intention of submitting the results (if it generates a substantial enough response), then what's the point of even starting it? So we can all dry each others tears in the petition's comments section?

i think that’s why change.org exists. someone is angry about something and they start a petition, and a load of folk, or hardly any folk, sign it. whoever started it probably thought it’s an official petition platform cause of how they’ve designed the website and using .org even though they are a private company. nothing happens, and change.org make millions of dollars from selling their email addresses, or advertising or whatever.

it is a great example of the internet generation

 

[zouzounaki]

the parliament has it’s own petition website with rules and regulations around it, requirements that things are debated if they get a certain amount of signatures. b it they probably don’t spend as much on publicity and marketing.

 

[MetalVape90]

Sounds like we’re pretty much screwed since the banning of disposables has opened up the gateway for the community of incompetent parents (Mumsnet) have immediately jumped on to a flavour ban now.

 

[Toby iVapour]

also, it's not really the government we are fighting against.... it's this.
View attachment 347732

And this -
Disposable vape ban: 'It can't come soon enough'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68126584

'I found a wall of vapes'
The father of three boys, who the BBC has chosen not to name, said the ban "can't be strong enough or come soon enough".
After finding a "wall of vapes" behind a sink, he was shocked to discover that his 13-year-old had been vaping for two years.
His eldest, a 16-year-old, recently hid a "mixture of disposable vapes, refillable vapes, cigarettes as well as 'home-made cigarettes'" in the roof tiles of his house.

Teacher: 'My pupil collapsed'

Etc...

 

[Toby iVapour]

Or this -
The surprising truth about ‘Nanny State’ Britain
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-surprising-truth-about-nanny-state-britain/

Sunak’s smoking and vaping policies will likewise become permanently embedded features of British public policy. Why? Because they follow, not lead, public opinion and public habit. The public have been shifting away from harmful tobacco consumption for decades, part of a wider move towards healthier living. Intervening to ban things most people don’t want to consume – or wish they didn’t consume – is not really ‘controversial’.

And those bans are a sign of things to come.