On his Tobacco Analysis blog, ACSH advisor Dr. Michael Siegel of the Boston University School of Public Health excoriates the European Union s revised Tobacco Products Directive. The already restrictive Directive now recommends banning the marketing of all smokeless nicotine-containing products (NCP).
The Directive, leaked to the Tobacco Journal International, calls for a ban on all NCPs that are not authorized as medicinal products on the basis of their quality, safety, and efficacy. And because electronic cigarettes, in addition to other NCPs, have not been authorized as medicinal, they would be included in the proscription.
But as Dr. Siegel points out, What the Tobacco Products Directive is basically saying is that the EU wants to make sure that the most hazardous nicotine-containing products (cigarettes) and only the most hazardous nicotine-containing products remain on the market and available to Europe's nicotine users. This is essentially a strategy to maximize disease and death in Europe.
ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross agrees. This proposal is pure hypocrisy, he says. It is puritanical and the exact opposite of maintaining public health. And unfortunately, the EU is not alone in its crusade against tobacco harm reduction. As you ll recall from last week s Dispatch, the Ministry of Health in New Zealand has moved to ban Hydro, a popular brand of electronic cigarettes. Dr. Murray Laugesen, founder of Health New Zealand, responded to the news by writing an open letter to the Ministry, calling for a review of its policy on electronic cigarettes. Such a ban, Dr. Laugesen stated, is against the public s and particularly smokers best interests.
Australia, New Zealand, and countries in Eastern Europe such as the Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, are banning nicotine replacement products, says Dr. Ross. And now the EU? Let us hope that soon health officials from all over the world will lose sight of their prejudices and dogmas, and begin promoting cessation products that actually work like e-cigarettes!
The truth is, e-cigarettes have the potential to help millions of people who remain addicted to smoking, adds ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. There is an increasing body of data, mostly from anecdotal reports at present, but also from some clinical studies, showing that smokers are significantly more likely to quit cigarettes when they are aided by e-cigarettes, as opposed to FDA-approved cessation methods. One remains puzzled, then, why these devices still meet with such strong opposition.
