Being more of the sit and rant than the stand up activist type, I sent a scathing email off to the MHRA (basically a rant.. won't change their approach but felt good to vent) in which I alluded to cosy relationships with big pharma /corruption and received a reply from their customer service:
Dear S. Ashton,
Thank you for your comments regarding our recent announcement.
We reached our decision through conducting an initial public consultation which was followed by a period of further scientific and market research into the safety and quality of such products including how they are used. As you are aware our conclusion is that by regulating electronic cigarettes and other NCPs as medicinal products, the government can ensure that high-quality products can be made available to help support smokers to cut down their smoking and to quit. We have published a significant amount of supporting information on our website related to this (which can be accessed via the link below) including a document entitled 'Proportionate Regulation' which focuses on applying the medicines regulatory framework in a proportionate way. One of the conclusions reached in this document is that fees could be adjusted according to turnover and that staged fee payments could also apply.
www.mhra.gov.uk/ncps
Kind Regards,
Ben,
Customer Services
External Relations
Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency
Following the included link does indeed allow access to some pdfs and I had a look at the 'Proportionate Regulation' one suggested.
I was unsurprised to find the following as one of their reasons for regulation:
2.3.1 Risk management
"Part of the appeal of NCPs is that they can look like conventional cigarettes, closely mimicking the "hand to mouth" behaviour and some of the associated sensory/ritual elements of smoking. These factors could be seen as beneficial as they may result in better "efficacy" in reduction of cravings and more acceptable to users but may also raise concerns relating to potential for misuse and/or abuse. Overall they may be seen as healthy and/or safe ways of smoking and this could lead to the following undesirable situations.
Current smokers may continue to use them long term (particularly if there is partial substitution) and although this could be considered a "harm reduction" strategy and a move towards "tobacco free state", partial replacement of a considerable duration may increase overall tobacco use. From a survey of 592 UK Smoking Cessation Practitioners (Hiscock et al E-cigarettes: Views from UK smoking cessation practitioners (unpublished), the vast majority had been asked in the previous 6 months about e-cigarettes and although there were anecdotal reports of clients using e-cigarettes for both quitting and harm reduction, the practitioners had concerns about prolonging habitual smoking. Ninety percent wanted more research and guidance in this area.
Let me translate this into easy to understand terms.
Basically, they are saying that e-cigs work, and work very well, but they don't want us using them. They want us to quit completely and totally eradicate smoking. Notice that they view vaping as a form of smoking and see no actual fundamental difference between the 2. They confirm that stop smoking clinics have reported clients that have successfully stopped smoking using e-cigs but totally reject using e-cigs as a harm reduction strategy is viable. Strange then, that they also consider 'traditional' forms of NRT eg. nicotine patches, to be acceptable to use as long term harm reduction.
Some bullet points to take away:
* They want us all to quit completely, they don't want us using vaping as an alternative to smoking.
* They are quite happy to use so called data from "unpublished" surveys to back up their spurious arguments.
* They would rather us carry on using 'traditional' NRT to quit completely despite it's dismal overall success rates.
* They are happy for use to use nicotine patches as harm reduction even though they contain the same medical grade nicotine as the e-cigs they
don't want us using.
* They want all of the above despite vaping being proven to keep people off tobacco cigarettes which are known to be harmful.
Given the above points, I can only conclude that the cruel, uncaring 'quit or die' principle is still alive and well, and that the MHRA is totally influenced by and biased towards their NRT producing pharmaceutical company bedfellows.
This is just one of a raft of reasons that the MHRA
cannot be trusted. I urge ANYONE who thinks that regulation by the MHRA is a good idea to dig a little deeper. Scratch the surface and their true, corrupt motivations become clear.
