Dave
Keatingd.keating@europeanvoice.com
The question of how to regulate electronic cigarettes is the biggest remaining obstacle to an agreement between MEPs and the member states on revising the European Union’s laws on tobacco.
As negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers prepare to meet in Brussels next week to finalise the text of a revision to the tobacco products directive, lobbying about e-cigarettes is intensifying.
At issue are differences on whether e-cigarettes should be regulated lightly because they might prove useful to wean smokers off more harmful cigarettes, or whether they themselves pose a health risk.
E-cigarettes deliver nicotine electronically without a flame and without tobacco or tar. Because they do not contain tobacco, they have hitherto been outside EU law, and are largely unregulated across Europe.
In its initial draft of the revision to the tobacco products law, the European Commission proposed to regulate e-cigarettes as medicines.
E-cigarette companies and their users campaigned furiously against this, saying that the medicines approach would strangle their business and deprive people of a valuable tool for quitting smoking.
MEPs voted last month by 350-300 to reject the Commission’s approach.
The health ministers of the member states have proved anxious about the possible health consequences of opening a new market for nicotine and they insisted on the medicines approach.
Ahead of next week’s negotiations, the Commission has circulated a text that, while it would not treat e-cigarettes as medicines, would introduce a series of restrictions.It suggests banning e-cigarettes that produce levels of nicotine above 20 mg per ml of vapour or 10mg/unit and those with refillable cartridges or tanks. It would also ban e-cigarettes designed to taste like tobacco.
A meeting of member state representatives today (28 November) will determine if the Commission’s revised text has done enough to persuade member states to give up their attachment to the medicines approach.
The MEPs’ negotiators discussed the new text yesterday, but sent questions to the Commission with concerns about some of the new restrictions.
Linda McAvan, the British centre-left MEP leading the negotiations for the Parliament, said the Parliament was “standing by its position” – to regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco.
This week, a group of health professionals and academics sent a letter to all MEPs warning that the Commission’s suggestions would eliminate e-cigarettes as a tool to help people give up smoking. “Regulating e-cigarettes in such a quasimedicines framework would – perversely – make it easier to make and market tobacco cigarettes than the much safer e-cigarettes,” said the letter, which was co-ordinated by Totally Wicked, a maker of e-cigarettes.
Fraser Cropper, chief executive of Totally Wicked, said the Commission and the Lithuanian government, which holds the presidency of the Council, were “making up policy on the hoof that will ban each and every product that is currently available”.
The e-cigarette industry says a majority of current users use devices that would fall foul of the revised text: they use refillable cartridges and the vast majority of current e-cigarettes produce levels of nicotine that exceed the proposed nicotine limit.
A ban on tobacco flavouring would also negate their effectiveness in replacing tobacco, it adds.
Health campaigners are split on the issue of e-cigarettes.
The group Cancer Research UK released a report yesterday (27 November) claiming that e-cigarettes are easily marketed to young people in the absence of regulation.
The products are being advertised on social networks and in television advertising – forbidden for regular cigarettes.
Cancer Research UK said that while it was not opposed to the devices being marketed to adults as a means to help people give up smoking tobacco, regulation had to be robust because big tobacco companies plan to use the new market as a way to regain lost customer numbers. “The market is looking to make money, not improve public health, and this is creating many dangers,” said Alison Cox, head of the group’s tobacco policy unit.
“The fact that multinational tobacco companies are moving in on this market is of particular concern.”The aim of the negotiators is to reach an agreement on the revised tobacco products directive at a first reading, before the end of the year, so that a text can be approved by the Council and Parliament before May’s elections.