Commentary
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- Category: Clive Bates
Clive Bates | 16 October 2013
On 8th October in Strasbourg, the European Parliament voted on a raft of measures to regulate tobacco and nicotine products. The headlines were the following [also see Telegraph summary]:
- a ban on menthol and other flavoured cigarettes from 2022
- warnings covering 65% of packs (30% now – campaigners are pushing for 75% and the right to go further)
- a ban on selling cigarettes in packs of less than 20
- no ban on ‘slim’ cigarettes
- a ban on most additives in tobacco products
- a continuation of the ban on snus outside Sweden in the face of all evidence.
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- Category: Gerry Stimson
Gerry Stimson | 13 October 2013
As the Telegraph put it, ‘The decision by MEPs to reject a European Commission proposal to treat electronic cigarettes as medicinal products was as sensible as it was unexpected’.
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- Category: Konstantinos Farsalinos
Konstantinos Farsalinos | 04 October 2013
I am sure everyone has heard the “magic number”: 60mg is the nicotine lethal dose in adults. Τhis is a very low level, which would categorize nicotine as one of the most toxic substances available. It is a very common and strong argument of the regulatory authorities and of several anti-smokers activists who support very strict regulation on e-cigarettes and criticize the high levels of nicotine present mostly in refillable liquid bottles.
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- Category: Clive Bates
Clive Bates | 03 October 2013
The amendment number 170 on e-cigarettes [ here] is now published and ready for consideration by the European Parliament on 8 October. As this was circulating on Monday 30th Sept, I wrote with comments and advice to the MEPs negotiating the amendment. Given they ignored most of it (!) that, these comments and the advice can now be read as concerns and criticisms.
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- Category: Gerry Stimson
Gerry Stimson | 29 September 2013
What were they thinking of at the European Commission when they proposed continuing with the ban on snus? The ban, and the proposal to control e-cigarettes as medicines, ranks as public health folly of the highest order.
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- Category: Karl Lund
Karl Lund | 24 September 2013
The extent and nature of the impact on public health of making snus available in new markets will depend on the relative risk of snus and smoking, and the relative uptake and use by smokers and non-smokers. Given a medical consensus that snus is approximately 90-99% less harmful than smoking, the overall effect from snus on public health will come down to the balance between its beneficial effect on smoking prevalence and its adverse effects on overall prevalence of tobacco use.
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- Category: Gerry Stimson
Gerry Stimson | 21 September 2013
New report by Clive Bates and Gerry Stimson on the Costs and burdens of medicines regulation for e-cigarettes.
What were the MHRA, the Department of Health, and their health advisers thinking when they embarked on the e-cigarettes as medicines route? The more you analyse it, the more medicines regulation appears to lead to a monstrous perversion of public health objectives.
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- Category: Konstantinos Farsalinos
Konstantinos Farsalinos | 18 September 2013
As I recently mentioned in a letter to the editor of Journal of Chromatography A, the way results of research are presented is crucial for the message obtained by the public and can have important implications on decisions implemented by authorities.
This is especially important in the case of e-cigarettes, mostly for 2 reasons:
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- Category: Michael Siegel
Michael Siegel | 15 September 2013
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported last week that the prevalence of youth in grades 6-12 who have experimented with electronic cigarettes in the past month increased from 1.1% in 2011 to 2.1% in 2012. Among middle school students, the prevalence of past month use increased from 0.6% to 1.1%. Among high school students, past-month use increased from 1.5% to 2.8%.
Based on these results, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden proclaimed: "The increased use of e-cigarettes by teens is deeply troubling....Nicotine is a highly addictive drug. Many teens who start with e-cigarettes may be condemned to struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine and conventional cigarettes."
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- Category: Clive Bates
Clive Bates | 5 September 2013
Today 5th September, the leaders of the main political group in the European Parliament, (a group known as the Conference of Presidents) will meet to decide on the timing of debate and vote on the tobacco products directive. The proposed text for debate, amendment and vote was only published on Friday 30 Aug and not in most languages. The deadline for amendments was on Wednesday 4th Sept.