The counterfactual

We need to talk about the children – the gateway effect examined

Clive Bates — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:20:00 +0000

Time to discuss the ‘gateway effect’… the idea that e-cigarettes or snus (a form of low risk smokeless tobacco) might be a cause of children taking up high risk cigarette smoking that would not otherwise happen. There’s virtually nothing in this theory – it is largely a campaigning tactic. But you hear much less [...]

10 reasons not to regulate e-cigarettes as medicines

Clive Bates — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:13:42 +0000

So the MHRA will regulate e-cigarettes as though they are medicines – press release. 10 reasons why is this a bad idea.

1. The real health challenge is to get e-cigarettes to eat into cigarette sales as rapidly as possible, and for as many smokers as possible to switch. This type of regulation works against [...]

Some truth about e-cigarette regulation and the ‘appalling’ F-grade presentation of the WHO

Clive Bates — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 18:06:36 +0000

A public health academic is forceful and direct with the misguided opponents and over-zealous regulators of e-cigarettes. He describes the presentation of World Health Organisation’s Roberto Bertollini to a European Parliament workshop as ‘appalling’. This is a measured, compassionate, but quietly angry and exasperated interview by one of Europe’s leading experts on e-cigarettes, Professor Jean-François Etter.I [...]

Are you being manipulated? The wisdom of the WHO examined…

Clive Bates — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 12:08:09 +0000

To coincide with World No Tobacco Day 2013 (theme: are you being manipulated?), I attended a workshop in the European Parliament: Do tobacco control measures reduce tobacco use: evidence from research and practice. Frankly, it was quite irksome at times. I finally felt obliged to tackle one of the speakers: here’s what happened…

Perhaps the most [...]

Amendments to achieve the maximum public health benefit from the Tobacco Product Directive

Clive Bates — Wed, 29 May 2013 10:46:08 +0000

MEPs on the European Parliament’s ENVI committee are about to consider 1,360 amendment proposals to the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive. I’ve written to them with suggestions on what to do and what not to do to get the best deal for consumers and public health.

Date: 29 May 2013

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The road to hell is paved with good intentions …and amendment 1250

Clive Bates — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:51:47 +0000

Graphic with thanks to the team at Vapour Trails TV

Updated: 29 May.

It has to be asked… Is Linda McAvan MEP, European Parliament rapporteur for the Tobacco Products Directive, in an unholy alliance with the tobacco industry? Judging by amendment 1250, she might as well be.

MEPs on her committee will look at [...]

Tobacco products directive – poor legislation harmful to health

Clive Bates — Mon, 06 May 2013 23:36:46 +0000

I felt moved to write to MEPs…

To: the ENVI committee rapporteur for the Tobacco Products Directive, Linda McAvan MEP

CC: ENVI MEPs

7 May 2013

Dear Ms McAvan

I wanted to make a few points about the draft tobacco products directive, your draft report and some of the points raised by you and other [...]

Amending the Tobacco Products Directive – how to fix the harm reduction agenda

Clive Bates — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 23:33:49 +0000

Key votes in July and September – everything still to play for.

We’re getting closer to serious position-taking and the first decisions in the European Parliament. So here is a post with my suggestions for amendments to the directive and some information for anyone interested in following what is going on in the process.

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E-cigarettes are unregulated, right?

Clive Bates — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:28:09 +0000

When the UK Medicines Regulator (MHRA) consulted in 2010 on whether e-cigarettes should be regulated as medicines, it gave three options: I summarise the first two and quote the third: Option 1. Regulate as medicines and withdraw unlicensed products in 21 days Option 2. Regulate as medicines and withdraw unlicensed products in a year (June 2011) Option [...]

Reasonable people saying sensible things about low-risk alternatives to smoking

Clive Bates — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:38:48 +0000

Warning: nicotine may induce authoritarian urges, warped judgements and loss of purpose

Smokeless tobacco products, e-cigarettes and novel nicotine products have astonishing potential to reduce the expected one billion premature deaths from tobacco in the 21st Century. Yet some health organisations are spreading misinformation, stoking up unwarranted fears and pretending there is much [...]

E-cigs: man talks sense

Clive Bates — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:43:01 +0000

Dave Dorn of VapourTrails TV - an e-cigarette user and enthusiast – explains e-cigs and goes through some commonly held misconceptions. That would be especially misconceptions of the type held by one Tom Riddington of The Guardian, who wrote a ridiculous article about e-cigarettes, to which this video is a response. Dr Riddington apparently specialises [...]

Pirate Party MEP tells the truth about smokeless tobacco… grown up politics

Clive Bates — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 12:32:49 +0000

Christian Engström, the Swedish Pirate Party MEP, makes the case for unbanning snus to the European Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) – also here on his blog. He is a shadow rapporteur to that committee, and they will provide an opinion to the Parliament on the European Commission’s proposal for the [...]

Israel to ban e-cigarettes…? More self-harming evidence-free unethical public health policy

Clive Bates — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:46:54 +0000

Completely counter-productive assessment of the value of e-cigarettes

Oh dear … Israel planning to ban e-cigarettes. I’ve responded to the consultation as below. You’ll need Google translate (the screen shot above is generated by Google) and I ended up sending my response to the site administrator as it was rejected by the web [...]

The Economist backs e-cigarettes – but frets about excessive regulation

Clive Bates — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:22:52 +0000

…a couple of interesting pieces on e-cigarettes in The Economist magazine.

No smoke. Why the fire? and E-cigarettes: Vape ’em if you got ’em

What to make of this…? Summary. The Economist writers are very enthusiastic about the potential of e-cigarettes to displace the cigarettes, and they take aim at health lobbyist objections ‘driven by puritanism‘. They [...]

Massaging the evidence to fit the policy: a critique of the European Commission’s case for banning snus

Clive Bates — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 10:25:21 +0000

It was painful to go through the European Commission’s attempt to justify the continuing ban on ‘snus’ (or ‘oral tobacco’ as it is known in Brussels). It’s hard to imagine a worse case of evidence being massaged into supporting a pre-determined policy conclusion – the conclusion is that beloved of bureaucrats everywhere: we were right [...]

‘Red tape threat’ to e-cigarette market

Clive Bates — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 08:20:58 +0000

Letter to The Times, 14 March 2013 on how misguided excessive regulation threatens one of the most promising technologies for public health – the e-cigarette.

‘Red tape threat’ to e-cigarette market

The e-cigarette is an emerging technology that could radically reduce the death toll from smoking and should be encouraged

Sir, The World Health [...]

E-cigarettes and garlic – what you need to know

Clive Bates — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 15:07:30 +0000

Q. What do e-cigarettes and garlic capsules have in common?

A. Neither are medicines

Would it actually be legal to classify e-cigarettes as medicines? A landmark legal case involving the classification of garlic capsules suggests the European Court of Justice would not accept this definition. Other recent legal cases in member states support that [...]

Tyranny of the majority – each country should decide whether it wants to ban oral tobacco

Clive Bates — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 11:37:50 +0000

A response to the UK Balance of Competences Review… Should the EU impose a blanket ban on oral tobacco (other than in Sweden, which is allowed an exception)? Why not allow each member state to decide? If a member state wants to take a robust evidence-based approach to tobacco harm eduction by allowing low [...]

Saving lives in Sweden, banned by the EU: experts call for change to smokeless tobacco policy

Clive Bates — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 23:07:26 +0000

Sweden is a stunning outlier in European Union smoking rates – and the benefits are lower death rates from tobacco-related disease – now and locked in to the future

Spreadsheet data, charts and sources and look at this too.

One of the greatest public health successes in Europe is due to… tobacco

According to [...]

Reduce harm or protect the cigarette industry? Briefing to MEPs for European Parliament public hearing

Clive Bates — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 17:32:20 +0000

European Parliament: heading for an own goal?

On Monday 25th February 2013, the European Parliament committee that is scrutinising the proposed EU Tobacco Products Directive holds a public hearing, and take evidence from invited witnesses. The committee is the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee (known as ENVI). This post provides links to [...]