Do we need to accept that we will have to "pay" for Ejuice?

[whipitup]

That way lies conspiracy tin foil hattedness, cynicism and apathy.

How did you know?, I feel particularly cynical and apathetic right about now!!

 

[whipitup]

The PM's job should be to serve the best interests of the whole country,not as we're seeing more & more,whatever serves their purpose.

The word "should" just about sums it up.

 

[Motorheaded]

That way lies conspiracy tin foil hattedness, cynicism and apathy.

In the longer term smoking is a net drain on society. Politicians also have to be 'seen to be trying to do the right thing'.

It might well be true that they know NRT is poor, and politicians tend to think in the short term only 'what will effect my chances of getting and staying elected for the next decade' but if a politician is seen to be actively voting for something that is provably damaging to public health by enough of the voting public it's not going to go well for them.

E-cigs are a game changer. Brand new disruptive technology. Up till now what other option was there for people to quit smoking? None. All they had was 'quit or die' and they could happily impose ever more tax increases safe in the knowledge that no matter what they did to the cost of a pack of 20 fags, about 20% of the population would still buy them, and about 10% of the population died off early from smoking related disease.

They are going to get taxed. More than likely heavily (see Italy's SuperTax) BUT we live in a single EU market and the same thing will happen in any member state that imposes a high tax burden while other neighbouring states have a low(er) tax, we just buy it from somewhere else, and then the UK loses much bigger.

I'm really optimistic about the future of e-cigs and vaping. We have the science on our side (Pharma and other interested parties have been trying to find 'the magic bullet' study that proves vaping is bad for you and they quietly try to not announce the results of study after study that they have funded that proves otherwise) we have growing numbers of voting people on our side, and a lot of vapers are getting very political. Social media is now being used to organise political events in ways that the old guard politicians can't get their heads around AND there is a UK General Election coming up and politicians off all types are shit scared about not getting elected.

We have them by the short and curlies frankly.

Unless some unforseen huge health issue comes to light - smoking tobacco will be an anachronism within a generation. You can't halt progress. "Gravity always wins"

I don't want to be too negative, but this is wildly optimistic.

I can think of one politician whom, despite overwhelming public dissent, huge demonstrations, and warnings from the international community, took us into two illegal wars. This has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, billions of pounds, and our nations credit rating.
Mister Blair's income has just been revealed to be £13million this year, adding to his £70 million fortune.

 

[MrTeaTime]

Mister Blair

Chunt

Sent From My Galaxy S4

 

[Chegs]

You're all spelling his surname wrongly...it's B​liar

 

[VaperCaper]

I don't want to be too negative, but this is wildly optimistic.

I can think of one politician whom, despite overwhelming public dissent, huge demonstrations, and warnings from the international community, took us into two illegal wars.

War is a different animal to most things.

I'm a pacifist, but despite how horrible war is it is good at making the defense industry squillions of pounds and justifying both our nation and other nations "defense" budgets, re appropriating resources as well as driving invention and human advancement. Lots of powerful people have lots to gain from war sadly. We also had a UK government that had recently been elected to a Landslide majority.

If you put war to one side though progress trumps everything else. Another disruptive technology that still no-one gets their head around right now is the internet.

I'm old bastard. When I was 7 I got myself a ZX Spectrum and I've used computers nearly everyday of my life since then.

My 2 year old niece is already proficient with an iPad. When I was growing up I could program the VCR, my parents asked me to do that for them. My generation came up with the internet, computers more powerful and more connected than the computer tech that put people onto the moon now fit into a watch. We have voice and video communication available to anyone for free, more or less and I can video chat in real time with friends in australia. What kind of advances are the kids that are 7 now going to have come up with by the time they are 40?

Some years ago SNUS was banned EU wide (almost). The pharma companies fudged some research, paid off some (sorry 'lobbied') EU votes and squashed one of the up till hen best tobacco harm reduction products.

Whats different now? Connected social media. Twitter is probably the biggest advance in human civilisation since the internet itself was invented. Motivated people can connect with and engage many other people who would otherwise not know about/do much about what's happening in the "corridors of power". It's hundreds of times easier now to get hundreds of people to write to their elected representative now about an issue, and elected representatives ignore the actual real people that write to them at their peril. Especially with an election coming up.


It's easy to sit back and point at past events and say "well yeah but look at that, nothing we did made a difference then did it"

If noone does anything than Amendment 170 never gets onto the table and e-cigs would be banned already.

I am optimistic about the future, I don't think wildly so.

 

[AndyC1971]

Vapercaper, I too think you are being a tad too optimistic. The future is not rosy, for humankind (that is a whole different ballgame!) or for eliquid. I personally think that eliquid will go down exactly the same route as SNUS. It will be illegal to sell, but not illegal to import, pair that with Nicotine is a poison, and we will end up with paying through the nose to import it! It will all go DIY.

 

[Ninjaassasin1983]

its rue yes we will probably be heavily taxed in the future but if its a choice i do not intend to go back to the smoke vaping all the way

 

[steffijade]

I am not so sure that high taxation of e-liquid is inevitable.

Sure, the government will want to tax it heavily to try and recoup revenue loss from fewer people smoking, but as has been mentioned already, social media could be a tool in limiting how much they can get away with taxing.

If there were the same kind of concerted and sustained campaigns we've seen with the TPD, perhaps it's possible to force the government to set a lowish rate. The justification for heavy taxation on tobacco has always been that it is damaging to health and taxation would act as a deterrent. Given that most 'experts' seem to think vaping is between 100 and 1000 times safer than smoking, there can be no moral justification for high taxation and that is something that we should already be pushing out there into the public's consciousness imho.

The only counters to this argument the government could use that I can see are the gateway theory, which is already beginning to be revealed for the bullshit it is, or the 'nicotine addiction is evil and must be stopped at all costs' argument.

The gateway theory will die a natural death I reckon because it's simply won't be backed up with evidence in the long term.

The 'evil nicotine' is a harder one to fight, mainly because the general public have been brainwashed by anti smoking propaganda into believing that the nicotine is what causes the damage to smokers (you only have to look at how many people refer to 'nicotine stains' when they should actually be referring to tar stains).

I think as a community (if that's what we are as vapers) we should be starting to push this information out into the 'mainstream' so that nicotine isn't viewed as being quite so evil.

If it can be cemented into the public consciousness that nicotine in the dosage range used by vapers isn't damaging to health, then maybe the government will have a harder time trying to justify excessive taxation.

 

[antwilk]

I have stocked up just to be safe we should be ok until 2016 unless the sneaky B@&%"+/s try and get it in early. I am good for the next 4 years or so lol.